> V * * * *- c 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS 



FAITH AND DUTY. 



DISCOURSES 



JOHX JAMES TAYLEE, B.A. 



Ta S6y/j.ara crv eroifxa ex e npbs rb ra 9e7a Kal avdp&iTiva eldevai 
Kal irav Kal rb fXLKporarov ovroo 7roie?v, ws rrjs a/jLcporepow irpbs aWr]\a 
rrvvSecrews fi€fxur}/j.€uou. Ovre yap avQp&Trivov ri iivev rr\s iirl ra Oela 
(Tvvavacpopas eu 7rpa£e*s, oirre e/jLiraXLV. — JSIarcus Antoninus \ III. 13. 

Est igitur (quoniam nihil est ratione melius, eaque et in homine et in Deo) 
prima homini cum Deo rationis societas. — Cicero, De Legibus, i. 7. 

The Human is inexplicable without reference to the Divine, and the Divine 
without reference to the Human. 



SECOXB EDITION. 



LOXDOX: 

1855. 




FEINTED BY 
JOHN EDWABD TAYLOB, LITTLE QUEEN SIEEET, 
LIN COLO'S INN EIELDS. 



PREFACE. 



This Volume is published in compliance with ear- 
nest and repeated request; and that is the proper 
apology for its appearance. Never indeed can the 
themes of which it treats lose their interest with 
the thoughtful and the serious : but there are few 
minds that can hope, by any originality of concep- 
tion or freshness of illustration, to set in a new light 
and invest with a new attractiveness, those aspects 
of our relation to the great realities of the Uni- 
verse, visible and invisible, which under some form 
or other are ever present to the human conscious- 
ness, and age after age have had the richest lights 
reflected on them from the most gifted spirits. Xo 
such presumptuous hope would ever have delivered 
these pages to the world. — But we may exact too 
much from ourselves; over-estimate our claims as 
well as under-estimate our powers; and omit to do 
good, from miscalculating our capacity of usefulness. 



VI 



PREFACE. 



By aiming at too high an intellectual standard, we 
may let slip the more obvious and certain oppor- 
tunities of moral influence, which ever wait on sin-= 
cerity and earnestness, the honest pursuit of truth 
and the ardent desire of human happiness. It is 
a comfort to feel that this Volume is put forth 
under circumstances which give it the promise ol 
some beneficial impression on the minds to which it 
is immediately addressed. It is committed to them 
in the full trust, that the remembrance of the friend 
will in some measure supply the defects of the 
writer ; that the mutual confidence and understand- 
ing of a long and happy intercourse will infuse a 
deeper significance into words that might else fail 
to interest or convince; and that many a passage, 
associated with the memory of the living sympathies 
that once took it to the conscience and the heart, 
will gather a light from affections which have been 
purified and brightened by the common sorrows and 
joys of many years, and are destined, it is hoped, 
to endure unchanged through the evening of life. — 
To those who share with the writer these grateful 
recollections and happy feelings- — this Volume is 
dedicated. — If it shall help to preserve in their 
hearts, while they tarry here, the living spirit of 
the Religion of Christ;— to cherish their enthusiasm 
for what is pure, and noble, and generous ; — to urge 



PREFACE, 



vii 



them to a high and self-denying virtue ;— to give 
them the strength of faith under affliction and trial ; 
— and to fill them with a calm and holy trust in the 
expectation of the last great change : — it will have 
performed its task, and may pass contentedly to its 
rest with the generation which it has served in its 
day to comfort and instruct. The small drops that 
from endless sources instil a strengthening sweet- 
ness into the draught of life, cannot be counted 
and are soon forgotten; but their united influence 
leaves the world better and happier than it would 
else have been. 

Should this Volume attract the notice of any 
minds unprepossessed by such friendly associations 
— their candid judgment is bespoken in behalf of 
some views that may be found not wholly in accord- 
ance with the received opinions of the Christian 
world ; and should the quarter whence it comes, raise 
a prejudice which repels examination, let them con- 
sider the words of the humble and pious a Kempis 
— 'Xon quseras quis hoc dixerit, seel quid dicatur 
attended 



March 25, 1851. 



ADVERTISEMENT TO SECOND EDITION, 



Although the Second Edition of this Volume ap- 
pears under very different circumstances from the 
first, I desire to present it once more, as an expres- 
* sion of my unaltered attachment, to the dear friends 
of earlier years, for whose use its contents were ori- 
ginally prepared; — with the assurance, that change 
of scene and occupation has drawn after it no change 
of interest or affection ; and with a fervent prayer for 
myself and them, that the deep sorrows and irrepa- 
rable losses of this earthly scene, which overtake us 
wherever we are, may daily infuse into our common 
trusts and sympathies, more of that divine strength 
which comes from a quickened consciousness of the 
awful but glorious realities of things unseen and 
eternal. 

In one or two passages of this edition, the dic- 
tion has been slightly altered, to make the sense 
clearer and more complete ; and after the example of 
the American reprint (New York, Francis and Co., 
1851), the few notes have been transferred to the 
bottom of the page. 



London, March 21, 1855, 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

SPIBITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST . . . . . 1 

IX 

man's ascent to god . 16 

m. 

god's descent to man . . . . .32 

IV. 

CHRIST THE MEDIATOR ....... 48 

V. 

THE HARMONY OF THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST . 65 

VI. 

THE DISTINCTIVE AND PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY . 83 

VII. 

THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST ...... 100 

VIII. 

THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART .... 116 

IX. 

THE COINCIDENCE OF GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE 129 

X. 

THE TRUE EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD . 148 



xii 



CONTENTS, 



Page 

FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL . 166 

XII. 

THE SPIRIT OE THE COMMANDMENTS AND THE SPIRIT 

OE LIFE 180 

XIII. 

THE BLESSING- OE SORROW . . » . > . 198 

XIV, 

MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY . 213 

XV. 

SIMPLICITY OF HEART . . . . 231 

XVI. 

THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE . 245 

XYII. 

THE RELIGION OF THE INTELLECT AND THE RELIGION 

OF THE HEART ; 261 

XVIII. 

THE GROUNDS AND LIMITS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY . 275 

XIX. 

THE CHANGE OF DEATH 293 



retrospect and anticipation (delivered december 

29th, 1850) ...... 309 



DISCOURSES. 



I. 

SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 

Amos viii 11, 12. 

" Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a 
famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, 
but of hearing the words of the Lord : 

" And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even 
to the east ; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, 
and shall not find it." 

In the childhood of the human race. Religion is a 
spontaneous sentiment and intuitive perception, in 
which, as in a surrounding atmosphere, the mind un- 
consciously draws its breath and has its being. In the 
broad sunlight and the drifting cloud — m the roar of 
cataracts and the roil of thunder — in the fitful whis- 
perings of the forest-trees and in the monotonous dash 
of the surge on the ocean-beach — the tenant of the 
primeval wilderness recognized a presence and a power 
which thrilled and awed his soul, and overwhelmed 
him with emotions that are the germ of adoration 
and worship. Such is the origin of a natural piety. 
It is the mind's instinctive acknowledgment of a 

B 



.2 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



kindred spirit in the outward universe. It is not 
the product of reasoning, for it is found strong and 
active, where the faculty of reasoning is hardly deve- 
loped : but it lies deeply imbedded in those primitive 
tendencies of our nature, which all reasoning tacitly 
assumes and acts upon. Here is the hidden fount 
of Faith, which must gush up within the man, and 
cannot flow into him from without. It is the in- 
terior sentiment which all religious teachers must 
appeal to and awaken, or their instructions will re- 
main simple formulas — a mere rind of words without 
any core of vitality. It is the material, out of which 
the domestic affections, the moral sense, and the 
usages of society, blending with the influences of ex- 
ternal nature and stimulated by the inspirations of 
holy men and prophets — have elaborated the various 
religious systems that have ever existed in intimate 
union with civilization — strengthening it with an en- 
ergy of good, so long as any genuine faith subsisted at 
the heart of them— but withering, as soon as faith was 
gone, into hollow observances and senseless dogmas, 
the retreats of hypocrisy and corruption, prolific only 
of delusions that poison and cramp the soul. It has 
been the problem of ages — not yet completely solved 
— how to uphold this primitive faith — this faith in 
spiritual realities and omnipresent mind — in free and 
living harmony with the irresistible conclusions of 
science and the encroaching influences of material 
wealth. 

All our instinctive tendencies become in time the 
subject of reflection and analysis — the religious among 
the rest. This power of self-observation is the privi- 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 3 

lege of man ; but it has its inconveniences as well as 
its advantages. Reason is an instrument confided to 
our discretionary use. It is long before we learn to 
handle it wisely, or perceive the limits within which 
it can be profitably employed. If we ask for proofs 
which the nature of the subject does not admit, we 
plunge into helpless scepticism. If we insist on ren- 
dering logically clear, that which from its very infinity 
eludes the grasp of a finite intellect, we only thicken 
the natural darkness which envelopes us. If we at- 
tempt to determine that, which from the condition of 
the case is indeterminable — we sow the seeds of end- 
less subtleties which choke the mind instead of fruc- 
tifying it. If we aim at producing unity of opinion, 
where variety of conception is inevitable — we necessi- 
tate the existence of sects whose interminable warfare 
diversifies the forms of error without multiplying in 
an equal degree the chances of truth. These mistakes 
have been committed age after age by the religious 
mind. We have overlooked the primitiveness and 
superiority to all logical proof, of that fundamental 
feeling, out of which faith in a ruling mind and a 
divine government, is naturally evolved in the deve- 
lopment of the human faculties ; while the secondary 
doctrines constructed on this hidden basis by the ac- 
tivity of the speculative intellect, have been assailed 
and defended on grounds equally unsatisfactory, be- 
cause not reduced to those primary data whence faith 
has its origin and where only conviction finds its 
ultimate repose. From this misdirection of inquiry, 
religious controversy becomes, as it proceeds, predo- 
minantly intellectual, and retreats at every step fur- 

b 2 



4 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OP EAITH AND DUTY, 

ther and further from the inner source of Faith, out 
of which all vital results must issue. The devout fer- 
vour which was so strong in the early stages of the 
religious life — waxes faint and chill. The streams of 
inspiration which once bathed the soul in a flood of holy 
joy — run low, and leave it arid and barren. Dry and 
intellectual natures, unable to behold any vital prin- 
ciple at work, begin to look on all theological ques- 
tions as thorny disputes about words, and yielding to 
the reactionary impulse of their time, turn away with 
absolute indifference from Religion itself. 

Collaterally with this inner decline of the religious 
life, it will often happen, that either the sciences of 
pure intellect, or such as investigate the properties of 
matter, with the arts that are founded on them — re- 
ceive extraordinary stimulus, and make rapid pro- 
gress; and in both directions draw away the strength 
of thought from those spiritual elements of humanity, 
in the profound consciousness and earnest culture of 
which Religion finds its nourishment and vigour. The 
accumulation of riches — the taste for luxury — the 
sense of elegance — the spirit of commercial enterprise 
— so constantly associated with great scientific deve- 
lopments, and productive, like them, of many virtues 
— have also the effect of weakening for a time the 
spiritual tendencies and aspirations of the soul. The 
high tone of ancient reverence is lowered. Self be- 
comes too predominant in human aims. The ambi- 
tion of personal distinction and social elevation takes 
the place of faith and a simple purpose of duty, as 
the guiding impulse of multitudes. Devout surren- 
der of the heart to God is overpowered by the lust 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 



5 



of human sympathy. Clouds of gold, rich, palpable 
and gorgeous, curtain round this little life of earth, 
and shut out the view of that distant shore, deep- 
bosomed in eternity— to which the immortal spirit, 
when these pageantries are all dissolved, must take 
its silent and mysterious way. 

Meanwhile, that great truth of Scripture retains all 
its force — e Man cannot live by bread alone/ Neither 
the solicitudes of wealth nor the fascinations of vo- 
luptuousness can always banish the thought of that 
dread Infinitude, in which as in a fathomless ocean 
our atom of conscious being finds itself plunged. It 
is a sure sign of the indestructible root of Religion in 
our nature, that man is unable for any considerable 
period to subsist without it. He may profess infi- 
delity, but a secret faith is gnawing at his heart. He 
may give himself up to the world, and laugh at all re- 
ligious systems ; but ever and anon passing moods of 
inexplicable sadness will warn him, that he wants the 
solace of an inward peace. Through the veil which 
he has drawn over his mind, strange gleams of light 
will at times break in, and startle his fatal repose. He 
will be conscious of a vacuity which outward things 
do not fill. In the absence of faith, he will be the 
prey of a mysterious disquietude and unaccountable 
apprehensions. If he be of a reflective turn — in the 
vast silence of a speechless Universe he will feel him- 
self lonely and desolate — terrified at the solitudes 
which stretch around him on every side into bound- 
less space. Yea, there are moments when he will be- 
come a worshiper in spite of himself. Alone among 
the hills, with their solemn stillness floating round 



G 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



him — or as tie marks from the mountain-side the 
calm glory of the sun sinking down into a flood of 
ocean-light — he will recognize the invisible Presence 
that consecrates the universe, and the yearning for 
sympathy will burst in unbidden accents from his 
lips, "Thou wondrous Unknown' — he will exclaim 
— ' tell me, what Thou art. Answer the earnest ques- 
tionings of my spirit. Remove the film that hath 
hidden Thee from the eyes of my soul. Let me em- 
brace Thee as a kindred Spirit — not unconscious of 
thy creature's aspirations, nor spurning the trustful 
heart that seeks its peace in Thee/ 

Periods of indifference and scepticism are followed 
at length, through that conservative reaction which 
controls human affairs, by a revival of religious inte- 
rest and fervour. But the change does not take place 
at once, nor can it be artificially accelerated. The 
earlier ties which bound men to faith and duty, have 
been dissolved. They are out of harmony with them- 
selves and with the world. They experience a want 
which they know not how to supply. They begin to 
regret the faith which cheered and guided their sim- 
pler forefathers ; and many would fain throw them- 
selves back into it, if they could. This, however, can- 
not be. The solutions of one age do not meet the 
difficulties w r hich perplex another. Life has lapsed 
once more into a moral and spiritual chaos — and 
needs some higher influence to unravel its intricacies, 
and draw out its latent tendencies, and direct its 
vague aspirations. Men are suffering from a spiritual 
famine, and catch eagerly at every semblance of spi- 
ritual food. They languish for the word of God \ they 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AXD THIRST. 



7 



run to and fro to seek it, and cannot find it. This is 
a state of things which occurs at intervals in all cm- 
lized communities. The language of the prophet in 
the text refers immediately to the effects of protracted 
wickedness and infidelity in the latter days of the 
Israelitish kingdom — now turning again in questvof a 
faith which could not be found, because men's iniqui- 
ties had blocked up the access to it. But it is a re- 
presentation applicable to the corresponding period of 
every human history. It describes a want which at 
this clay is felt throughout society — the craving after 
spiritual rest and contentment — going up. and down 
the earth in search of it, without knowing where to 
look for it, or how it is to be obtained. 1 Behold, the 
days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a 
famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor a thirst 
for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord : and 
they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north 
even to the east ; they shall run to and fro to seek 
the word of the Lord, and shall not find it/ 

The present age, though deficient in clear, definite, 
and stable faith, can hardly be called an irreligious 
age. It is wholly unlike the latter half of the last 
century. It has no contempt for religion as such. It 
makes no war on its existing forms. It tolerates all 
which give evidence of an indwelling spirit of earnest- 
ness and sincerity. It will not accept the impres- 
sions of sense as the only possible realities. Its ten- 
dencies are rather towards mysticism than materi- 
alism. It is in quest of something which it cannot 
find. There is an affection, as yet uncertain of its 
object. There is an appetite, but without food which 



8 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

it can relish or digest. It is a spirit of hungering and 
thirsting for the "Word of God. From every side 
comes forth the cry, — c Who will show us any good V 
In its willingness to admit every plausible show of 
truth — in its eclectic and conciliatory tendency (for 
this is its tendency, despite the counteracting efforts 
of hierarchies) — our age has some resemblance to the 
commencement of the Christian era, when the disso- 
lution of old faiths had broken down the former bar- 
riers of opinion, and opened a free passage to many a 
disordered soul, for the restorative influences of the 
Gospel. 

Various are the expedients of unsettled minds, to 
still this inward craving for peace. — To and fro they 
go in all directions, like the troubled spirit of the 
wilderness, seeking rest and finding none. — Some ima- 
ginative natures fondly retreat into the past. There 
they recognize a world of faith, and think they can 
make it their own. — Reverently they shake off the 
dust from old dogmas and old usages ; and dragging 
them out of their dark retreats, set them up amidst 
the brilliant novelties which the sharp light of modern 
science shines upon, and expect by the mere contrast 
of their antique and mouldering aspect, to inspire again 
the worship and the trust of which they were once the 
object. And doubtless under these old forms there 
was hidden in their day a spirit of divine beauty and 
immortal life. — But of what avail is the corpse, when 
the breath has gone out of it ? ' Why seek we the liv- 
ing among the dead V It is the risen Jesus that we 
long to behold — not the cold, sepulchral stone that 
received his bier, nor the cerecloths that wrapped his 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 



9 



mortal clay. — No authority is lodged with the past, 
but what comes from principles that abide with us 
equally in the present, and in ever-changing forms 
will attend the human race through all the phases of 
its destined development. Forms wither and pass 
away; but principles endure.— We have done little 
in evoking the vanished form from the grave, if the 
conviction that once dwelt in it and gave it vitality, 
cannot be breathed into it anew. 

Others take up some fashionable philosophy, and 
try to compound a religion out of its doctrines. But 
no purely intellectual process can generate a faith. — 
We cannot lay down a plan of observation to detect 
a religion, and coolly await the result. Eeligion is no 
dim star hidden in the depths of speculation, of which 
when we suspect the quarter, we can calculate the 
attractions and predict the place. — It is a light, na- 
tive to the soul, and must arise on us within, if it 
arise at all. — If such faith as we have, be genuine — 
and if the philosophy that we follow, have in reference 
to man's nature, any truth at all — so far as religion 
and philosophy can properly intermix, they will unite 
of themselves without any compulsion from us. All 
our faculties and affections work in perfect harmony, 
when they healthfully develope themselves, and one 
is not allowed to tyrannize over the rest. 

Some again throw themselves into the fervours of 
fanatical excitement ; dissolve reason in dreams and 
ecstasies ; and exhibit to the contemptuous pity of 
sounder minds, the revolting phenomena of fakirs and 
schamans. — Some scrupulously tie down their belief 
to a literal acceptance of the mitten word; translate 

b 3 



10 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DITTY. 

the history and literature of ancient Palestine into a 
modern fact ; and waste their spiritual strength in 
fruitless efforts to accomplish the impossible and re- 
concile contradictions. — Others of a freer spirit have 
recourse to eclecticism; and picking out of all religious 
systems, whatever they like best and think most true, 
make up a patchwork of faith, harmonized by no 
strong pervading hue of individual conviction — at 
peace with all, but sympathizing profoundly with none. 
— Others flutter about in a thin atmosphere of hazy 
sentimentality, through which they see nothing clearly, 
though not without some perception of the cheering 
warmth of the Source of Day, 

Such endeavours to lay hold of Religion are often 
made with sincerity ; but they do not satisfy the con- 
ditions of the case, and cannot issue in a perfect peace. 
— Neither antiquity, nor philosophy, nor fanaticism, 
nor mere scripturalism, nor eclecticism, nor a mystic 
sentimentality — are Religion : they may afford an ac- 
cess to it, but they are not Eeligion itself. What 
course, then, must we take, to gain and secure this 
precious good? — TVe must abandon all artificial ex- 
pedients to force a faith. — We must submit ourselves 
to the order, indicated by Providence and displayed 
in the manifold experiences recorded by Scripture. — 
Every one must, in the first instance, go back to his 
own soul. There he may have direct communion with 
God. There is the source and centre of all spiritual 
vitality. There only he can break up the living foun- 
tain of Religion. Three simple rules furnish our best 
guidance . 

First, be true to yourself. Look through your na- 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 



11 



ture with the single eye of conscience. Disguise no 
evil that von find lurking there. Own it for what it 
is, and resolve to expel it. In aspiration and endea- 
vour aim at the highest good which you can conceive; 
however alien to many tendencies yet unsubdued and 
strong, your unperverted judgment will tell you, that 
it is the proper end and true glory of your being. 
Purified by this moral effort, call out into action those 
first principles of faith which you will find at the bot- 
tom of your soul — buried it may be under the rubbish 
of human systems — vast heaps of theological conven- 
tionalism or the grosser accumulations of philosophical 
sophistries. Be not anxious, impatient, over-inquisi- 
tive — but thoughtful, serious, calm. — Be still, and 
wait for God. Expect Him, and in his own time He 
will come to you. All is not error in the quietism 
inculcated by some religions writers. Bustle, ex- 
citement, scrupulous questionings about words and 
phrases, disperse the gathering elements of a religious 
life, and repel the silent affluxes of the Spirit of God. 
Feel yourself in the mysterious embrace of a Father's 
love. — In your solitary wanderings — in the secret 
communings of your heart — when you meditate on 
your bed in the night-watches — cherish the thought 
which will often arise within you then, that man 
could not be happy in the consciousness of perfect 
isolation — that he was not designed for one moment 
to live alone — that he dwells in the presence of a 
Spirit with which his own spirit has affinities, and 
may at all times and in all places have intercourse. — 
In the light of beauty that floats over the changing 
aspects of the material universe — in the grand inter- 



12 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



preting thought which pervades the broken story of 
the ages, and translates it into coherency — in the 
spirit which comes to you from the smiles of gladness 
and the tears of sorrow, and softens your heart in 
genial sympathy with human weal and human woe — 
in the interchange of ideas which kindles enthusiasm, 
and draws a higher meaning and purpose out of life 
— acknowledge realities which transcend the limits of 
sense — own a spiritual world whose mysteries encom- 
pass you on every side, by whose laws you are bound, 
and in whose issues of endless unfolding you are 
yourself perhaps destined to be involved. Admit these 
feelings — which at times with more or less power 
visit all men ; let them have free and unquestioned 
passage through your soul, and at length settle quietly 
on its silent depths : — and you will have begun the 
religious life ; you will have prepared and spread the 
soil ; and the seed which you cast into it, will hence- 
forth grow. 

Secondly, cultivate the domestic and social affec- 
tions. These will give richness and strength to the 
finer elements of religious veneration, and take a 
higher purity from it in return. Selfishness is the 
poison of a true devotion : love is its only fitting nu- 
triment. From the bosom of our homes ascends that 
ineffable sentiment which finds its loftiest object in 
God, and its final rest in Heaven. Not in the cells of 
anchorites or the joyless celibacy of the priest — but 
in the cheerful stir of the family life — in the generous 
charities which bind neighbours and fellow-citizens 
in one wide community of interest and endeavour — 
must we seek the discipline of that, healthful piety 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 



13 



which is the blessing and the consecration of our 
earthly lot. Bound to others by endless ties of affec- 
tion and sympathy, our being is made one with theirs : 
and their joys and sorrows — their successes and mis- 
fortunes — their sicknesses and trials — their births, 
their marriages, their deaths — peryade life with thrill- 
ing and ceaseless interest, and far more than any- 
thing which touches ourselyes alone, keep up strong 
and actiye within us the essential feelings of Religion . 
The heart which glows with human charities, cannot 
in its depths be indeyout. 

Thirdly, give yourself earnestly to duty. Scep- 
ticism often has its source in the torpor of the active 
powers. The dreamer comes at length almost to 
doubt his own existence. Resolve to work out faith- 
fully what you perceive to be the Sovereign will, and 
a more lively sense of God's presence will spring up 
within you. You will taste His blessing, and feel 
His strength; and your supplications for guidance, 
sustained by renewed endeavours to do right, wall 
bring an answer of quiet trust and steadfast faith to 
your heart. There is a fierce conflict of good and 
evil throughout the universe ; but good is in the as- 
cendant, and must triumph at last. It is the vital 
principle of things, in w r hich we believe God to be 
more immediately present and operative. Ally your- 
self with this principle. Put yourself in harmony 
with the grand order of Divine Providence. Grapple 
with evil in all its forms. Make war with all your 
energies, on falsehood, ignorance, oppression and vice. 
Uphold against them the cause of truth, and freedom, 
and justice, and humanity. Throw yourself heartily 



14 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 

into this great and noble warfare — never doubting to 
what issue it must come : — and every cloud of distrust 
and fear that may have darkened for a moment over 
your mind; will pass away; you will now see all 
things plain in the light of God ; you will be strong 
in that faith which gives man a giant's power for the 
achievement of the highest good. 

Thus attuned by inward and outward discipline to 
the true feeling of Religion — the influences of holy 
men and prophets will now tell with marked effect 
on the spiritual condition of your soul. Your own 
experience will give a meaning to their words, which 
before you could not comprehend. The mystic chain 
is now laid, along which the life of God may pass 
from some gifted spirit, richly charged with its power 
and its truth, into your spirit which still feels its de- 
ficiencies and craves to have them supplied. The re- 
ligious life which you have called forth by your own 
efforts, constitutes the inward revelation of the Divine 
Word ; and this is a condition of outward revelation, 
though it does not supersede it. Every wise man's in- 
struction and every good man's example feeds it with 
a holy oil, and causes it to send up a brighter flame. 

But the completest embodiment of a Divine Word 
in its external manifestation, — is that Holy Record, 
unfolding the progressive development of a monothe- 
istic faith — which exhibits at its point of culmination, 
the unparalleled reality of a sinless Manhood in per- 
fect harmony with God. Here is a stimulus, to rouse 
the lowest depths, and take in the whole compass, of 
the religious principle in man. Here is an Ideal, to 
shape its course and attract its aspirations. From this 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 



15 



realization of a perfect Humanity goes forth, to every 
believing soul, the transforming influence through 
which it is fashioned into the likeness of Christ and 
God, and becomes a partaker of that divine nature 
whose home is in Heaven. Thus the inward and the 
outward Word coalesce, and furnish mutual evidence 
of a common origin from God. The spirit of Christ 
shining through the outward Word, pours his own 
strength and fulness into the inward Word, and brings 
it out in clearer and brighter characters on the tablets 
of the individual heart : while the inward Word, thus 
quickened into a distincter consciousness, and with 
firmer reliance on its intuitive perceptions, becomes 
a sure guide for the mind through the tangled maze 
of Scripture lore, — enabling it at once to single out 
and appropriate amidst the perplexing redundancy of 
national legend and ancient song, of popular instruc- 
tion and prophetic enthusiasm — those great principles 
which contain the eternal truth of God — that bread of 
life and those waters of salvation, which can alone ap- 
pease the hunger and thirst of man's immortal soul. 



16 



II. 

MAN'S ASCENT TO GOD. 
James iv. 8. 

" Draw nigh unto God, and He will draw nigh unto you." 

Physically — we cannot separate ourselves from God ; 
for in tlie language of tlie Psalmist, He ' has beset us 
behind and before, and laid his hand upon us and 
in the still more decided words of Paul, ' in Him we 
live and move and have our being/ Morally — we 
feel ourselves at an infinite distance from Him : an 
impassable gulf seems to lie between Him and us. 
Scripture in various forms gives utterance to this so- 
lemn consciousness of every religious mind, — i God 
dwells in light which no man can approach unto/ (1. 
Tim. iv. 16.) The greatest prophet cannot 'see Him, 
and live/ (Exod. xxxiii. 20.) Even Abraham, the fa- 
ther of the faithful — distinguished as the friend of 
God — thought it a presumption, in the days of patri- 
archal communion, that he 'who was but dust and 
ashes, should have taken upon him to speak unto the 
Lord/ (Gen. xviii. 27.) 

If we rest in the first of these views, and confine 
our thoughts to the fixed and uniform order of phe- 
nomena which act on the senses — we not only see 
God in all things — which is a Scriptural idea — but we 



ma:n j s ascent to god. 



17 



are borne unconsciously to a conclusion winch goes 
beyond it ; we identify all things with God, and look 
upon ourselves as a part of Him. If we add to this 
vieWj the profounder consciousness of our spiritual 
activity and personal responsibility, which is its needful 
complement — and which has a yet stronger expres- 
sion in Scripture — the latter inference is checked ; for 
we then recognize all things — ourselves included — 
as dependent on God, yet distinct from Him — sub- 
sisting indeed through his ever-present energy, but 
under such conditions of limitation, as must separate 
by an insurmountable barrier every thing created 
from the absolute perfection of his own Infinitude. 
In tracing to its legitimate consequences the idea of 
fundamental power from these opposite data, we reach 
the point of vital separation between the pantheistic 
and the monotheistic conception of the universe. A 
different interpretation of the same phenomena, will 
cause a momentous difference in the conclusion. Ac- 
cording as we take consciousness, intelligence, will — 
in one word — Spirit — to be only the last result of the 
progressive development of things ; or to be itself, in 
its absolute state, the source and regulating principle 
of the entire system ; the most recent effect in the 
order of creation, or the fundamental agency which 
underlies all creation's energies and manifestations ; 
we lapse into virtual atheism, or we come to a clear 
acknowledgment of the Living God. 

A vital question, then, is involved in the right ap- 
prehension of what is called the personality of God. 
This doctrine, truly conceived, stands in the central 
point, from which opinion has constantly diverged, 



18 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



on one hand, into anthropomorphism which degrades 
the Almighty into a mere exaggeration of human pas- 
sions and infirmities \ — and, on the other, into pan- 
theism which evaporates Deity into an abstraction, or 
reduces it to an unintelligent and incomprehensible 
force. Each of these extreme tendencies is at war 
with a healthy reason, and destructive of genuine re- 
ligion : but we must not on that account include in 
undiscriminating censure, all the individuals who may 
from various causes have been more or less carried 
away by them. All errors that have had extensive cur- 
rency among earnest and thoughtful men, are allied 
to some truth, and were originally designed to correct 
some excess or meet some want of the spiritual na- 
ture."* In the action and re-action which mark the 
progress of ideas, doctrines mischievous in their re- 
moter consequences, may help to qualify too strong a 
tendency in the opposite direction, and so adjust the 
final balance of opinion. Meanwhile, the calm and 
dispassionate mind, observing how these divergencies 
successively compensate each other, is confirmed in 
its attachment to the great central truths, whose fixed 
influence and controlling attraction are equally indi- 
cated by them all. In pronouncing judgment, there- 
fore, on an individual, it is not fair to allege even the 
undeniable consequences of his opinions, if we have 
reason to think that he did not anticipate them. We 

* Der Irrthurn nirgeud an und fur sich ist, sondem i m mer nur an 
dem TTahren, und er niclit eher vollkomnien verstanden worden ist, 
bis man seinen Zusammenhang mit der Wahrlieit, und das Wahre 
woran er haftet, gefunden hat. — Schleiermacher, Christliclie G-Iauhe, 
I. § 7. 3. 



MAN*S ASCENT TO GOD. 



19 



must ask what his Past had been — and what his Pre- 
sent was : in them we can often find the determining 
impulse of a man's peculiar opinions. Perhaps he 
was so absorbed by the desire of counteracting evils 
and errors, which he daily felt, and saw in strong ope- 
ration around him, — that he hardly carried forward 
his thoughts into the Future at all. The impassioned 
anthropomorphism, which mingled such exciting ele- 
ments with the religious agency of Zinzendorf and 
Wesley, is entitled at least to a lenient construction, 
when we remember the cold and powerless rationalism 
which it strove to overcome. Nor again is it surpris- 
ing, that men so profoundly meditative as Spinoza — 
so ardent in speculation as Lessing — so refined, subtle, 
and comprehensive as Schleiermacher — disgusted with 
the gross and heavy orthodoxy of their day, and 
earnestly aspiring after a higher spirituality — should 
have rarefied their conception of God, till substance 
and vitality — all that we can realize to ourselves as 
a Living Personality — vanished away. It is impos- 
sible to doubt the pious feeling and serious purpose of 
all these men. Such considerations, however, should 
not blind us to the pernicious tendency of errors which 
then 1 genius and virtues have invested with a kind of 
moral respectability. Only let us spare the persons, 
while we attack the thing. 

We put ourselves in the right position for appre- 
hending the idea of the Divine Personality, when we 
set out from the first and nearest of all realities — our 
own spiritual consciousness — and think of God, as a 
kindred nature — a Conscious Mind. All that we mean 
by the Personality of God, is included in an adequate 



20 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

conception of Mind. From Mind we acquire the 
notions of will, power, origination. But mere power 
left to itself, would be a lawless and destructive force. 
From an inherent necessity, therefore, in mental ac- 
tion, we are compelled to assume the co-existence 
with Power, of other attributes to impel and guide it. 
These we express by the terms — Goodness and Wis- 
dom — which embrace together all the moral and all 
the intellectual perfections of the Sovereign Spirit. 
As we are conscious, that our own errors and vices 
proceed from passions, infirmities and fears which are 
incidental to our limited nature, but from which He 
whose nature is without limit, must be free — we hesi- 
tate not to speak of God as absolutely without imper- 
fection, and we ascribe to Him boundless Power, un- 
erring Wisdom, infinite Love. These three great at- 
tributes of Power, Wisdom, Goodness, present them- 
selves to us as necessary conditions of the existence 
and operations of the highest Mind — the absolute 
Being. Assume one of these attributes, and it will 
involve the co-existence of the other two. Admit flaw 
or deficiency in any one, and it will disturb its rela- 
tions with the rest, and draw after it a dissolution of 
that harmony and self-consistency of action which is 
the basis of our reliance on the order and perpetuity 
of the universe. 

Among the powers appertaining to the unsearch- 
able essence of God, we must include that of limiting 
the outgoings of his own creative energy — of arranging 
and distributing creation in endless gradations of life 
and faculty — of imparting to the race which He has 
placed at the head of the visible scale, some portion 



man's ascent to god. 



21 



of his own spiritual consciousness and freedom — and 
of allowing them within . certain bounds, through the 
mysterious endowment of will, to act in opposition 
to Himself. Within these bounds lies the choice of 
Right and Wrong — with its effects on the moral con- 
dition of the agent — and the liberty implied in that 
choice, of voluntarily approximating to God or with- 
drawing from Him. It is in this highest sphere of 
our existence, where we are conscious of moral distinc- 
tions and a spontaneous reverence for what is just and 
true — that our minds attain the deepest conviction of ♦ 
the Personality of God — that we own Him, as a real 
Being — a living Presence — a sympathizing Father and 
Friend. Our spirits — in this their holiest and most ele- 
vated mood — crave intercourse with a kindred Spirit 
— and believe it is granted them. They repel it as 
an impossibility which their inmost nature disavows 
— that at this most advanced point of their ever- 
unfolding being, on the dim confines of visible and 
perishing things, they should at length find them- 
selves lonely and forsaken — placed foremost among 
creatures, only to feel a more hopeless desolation — 
with no voice from the infinite Silence, to answer their 
imploring cries — no breath of responsive Love, to hush 
the throbbings of the expectant heart and soothe its 
intense yearnings after sympathy — no witness of a 
Parent Mind, to which a child's affections may cling, 
and to which a child's weakness and ignorance may 
trust itself, in the dread uncertainty which overhangs 
the Future and the Unseen. 

The apostolic exhortation, c Draw nigh unto God/ 
implies, that in our natural state and at the com- 



22 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

mencement of our moral career, we are at a distance 
from God — and that to approach Him, depends on our 
own volition and effort. This distance indeed varies in 
different individuals. The innocent simplicity of child- 
hood would seem to lie in immediate contiguity with 
the Spirit of God. Yet there are often inherent ten- 
dencies to evil, which show themselves from the first 
in the human being. Often too the original purity is 
soiled and darkened by appetite and selfishness which 
interpose a shade before the countenance of God, and 
render a restorative process necessary to bring back 
the clear consciousness of his benignant presence. In 
every case communion with God is not a simple gift 
of nature, but the reward and blessing of spiritual 
culture and devotedness. Our moral remoteness from 
God, and the necessity of holiness to approach Him 
- — is the great idea which pervades Scripture from 
beginning to end, and so broadly distinguishes it from 
the prevalent systems of philosophy. Thus placed by 
nature, while we are under the dominion of sense, 
and merely follow our instinctive impulses, at a great 
distance from the Most High — how are we to obey the 
apostle^s injunction, and begin the free movement of 
our minds towards God ? To trace this movement, is 
to trace the origin and progress of the religious life — 
that secret but fruitful intercourse which the experi- 
ence of thousands attests may subsist between the 
Spirit of God and the soul of Man. In the present 
discourse, I shall speak of that part only of the pro- 
cess which relates to Man — of his personal, voluntary 
efforts to attain to God, and hold converse with Him. 
(1.) The first step towards God originates in a deep- 



man's ascent to god. 



23 



ened sense of the moral worth and high responsibili- 
ties of Man's life. The religion of children, as of some 
uncultivated and simple tribes, consists in a vague 
wonder and awe, intermingled with a diffusive feeling 
of gratitude and trust. They are taught perhaps to 
blend the idea of God with that of duty ; but the as- 
sociation is not in general very vivid, till sorrow or 
death or the consequences of heedless transgression, 
have awakened the mind to profounder reflection on 
the destination of humanity. While life flows on — 
in the main innocent and happy — the moral conscious- 
ness is tranquil, but it is not quick and operative. 
Such, however, can rarely be for any length of time, 
the condition of a dweller on earth. Sorrows and 
trials are too thickly spread — misfortune and disap- 
pointment reach us through too many avenues — to 
leave any one many years undisturbed by the impor- 
tunate question — c Why am I here ? and what have I 
to do ? ; An ideal gradually shapes itself before every 
reflective mind, of Man's function and duty, which his 
actual performances and even his habitual aims fall 
immeasurably below, and the comparison of which 
with the reality, fills him Avith grief and shame. Per- 
haps some unwonted sin deepens the feeling of dis- 
parity between what he is, and what he ought to be 
— rouses him to a sense of danger — and puts him 
on efforts that he never made before. Perhaps he is 
awakened without passing through this ordeal of per- 
sonal humiliation. He is conscious of powers that 
have never yet been adequately exerted, or finds him- 
self possessed of opportunities which he has hitherto 
failed to improve. He looks around on a world lan- 



24 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH 



AND DUTY. 



guishing in darkness, sin, and woe — yet teeming on 
every hand with seeds of undeveloped good, vrhich 
only ask for patient and zealous culture, to ripen into 
wide-spread blessings for mankind. Can he linger in 
sloth and apathy, with no earnest aim or chosen work, 
while such solemn calls are made upon him? His 
self-reproach may be less for what he has — than for 
what he has not — done. But in this upbraiding sense 
of deficiency lies the hidden source of future strength. 
By whatever consciousness produced, whether of posi- 
tive wrong or of defective goodness — and however de- 
signated in the copious nomenclature of Religion — 
conversion, seriousness, new birth, conviction of sin, or 
self-dedication to the truth — in this strong and clear 
persuasion of a moral purpose in existence, and in the 
resolute sacrifice of all worldly, selfish, and carnal im- 
pulses that are at war with it — the true life of God in 
the human soul has its origin : and no one probably 
ever attained to eminence in virtue and religious wis- 
dom, ever rose above the standard morality of his age, 
or wrought any lasting good for mankind as a philan- 
thropist and a reformer — whose character had not 
passed through some such crisis as this. For with all 
such states of mind which involve the birth of a new 
and higher life, the idea of a Divine Inspector and 
Judge is deeply interfused. It is then that we hear 
His voice in our inmost souls, calling on us to come 
and serve Him. It is then that we own His presence 
in every deepened conviction and strengthened pur- 
pose, and in the solemn awe of religion overshadow- 
ing our daily steps. It is then that we are penetrated 
by the irresistible belief, glancing like heaven's light- 



man's ascent to god. 



25 



ning through the soul, that ail things must -work to- 
gether for certain good so long as we continue in free 
and unconditional self-surrender to His service. And 
all these influences blending into one, and acting with 
a single impulse on the mind, create the force which 
bursts the bondage of former habit and sets the bias 
of the character in a new direction. The sentiments 
which possess the soul, on the first experience of this 
change — are a grave and earnest sorrowfulness — hu- 
miliation before God — tenderness of heart — fervent 
prayer — moral watchfulness. The soul for the time 
is broken and cast down, and waits for encouragement 
to look up and proceed. Such is the natural expres- 
sion of this first stage of the religious life. We must 
not rest in it. It is but preliminary. It marks tran- 
sition. It is an effervescence of strong emotion, which 
must be fixed in principle and condensed into habit, 
or it will evaporate and pass away. Some forms of 
Religion, not perceiving this, have taken these tran- 
sient symptoms for the permanent functions of the life 
of God, and striving to arrest it at this point, have con- 
verted piety into one long agony of groans and tears. 

(2.) The resolution to serve God having been made, 
we come now to the ordering of the outward life and 
the discipline of the affections in accordance with it, 
The life of God must be deep set in firm and stead- 
fast principle, and must be built up and fortified on 
every side by virtuous habit. Habit and principle are 
not indeed the same thins: with the spirit of Religion • 
but they are indispensable conditions of its secure and 
continuous existence. They define and protect the 
sphere within which it lives and breathes, and give it 

c 



26 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OP FAITH AND DUTY. 

free scope to act — exempt from constraint and inva- 
sion. In this second stage of the religious life, the 
mind is less fettered by anxiety and fear. It has more 
reliance on itself. It feels safer against temptation 
and sin. It has more confidence towards God, and 
greater freedom in devotion. It has less of excitement 
and rapture — fewer of the deep convulsive struggles of 
faith and conscience, which marked its opening course 
— hut a more serene and habitual consciousness of the 
divine presence and of moral responsibility. — This pas- 
sage from the first to the second stage of the religious 
life, is the most critical period in the spiritual history 
of the Soul. It furnishes the test, whether the strong 
emotions which once agitated it, were merely a sudden 
gust that swept over it and passed away, or the har- 
bingers of deep and radical change. The emotions, 
when they came, might be genuine. But did they 
last ? Thousands have meant well, and striven for a 
time after the life of God. Alas ! they were open to 
impressions of every kind ; and the latest effaced the 
first. They wanted fixed resolve, distinct purpose, and 
the power of self-denial. The world was too strong 
for them. They abandoned prayer, and quitted their 
hold on God. The false lights of ambition and vanity 
led them astray. Snares and temptations beset them, 
and they fell : — and the day that dawned so fair, went 
down in grief and guilt. 

Nor is this the only danger that awaits men in the 
second stage of the religious life. They may tarry in 
this, as others have tarried in the first. They may 
never go on to perfect freedom and peace. They may 
remain entangled in the mere instrumentalities of 



man's ascent to god. 



27 



Religion : and without lapsing into vice and absolute 
worldliness, become scrupulous and formal. They 
may tie themselves down to duty, and punctiliously 
fulfil every letter of the outward law, without the faith 
and the love which sanctify and gladden the heart. 
It is of immense importance to the religious sentiment 
in this phasis of spiritual growth, that it should be 
associated with a rational and benevolent theology, 
which will divest it of all narrowness and gloom, and 
harmonize it with the great interests of humanity. 
For such a theology by unfolding a wide and cheerful 
view of the designs of Providence, and of man's busi- 
ness and destination in this terrestrial scene, quickens 
his onward progress, and facilitates the transition to 
a yet higher stage of religious development. 

(3.) Arrived at this, the mind surveys the whole 
world in a religious light, and impregnates every part 
of life with a religious spirit. In going to God, we do 
not separate ourselves from the world; for it is only 
through the world — in the very midst of its cares, 
temptations and trials — its active duties, its absorbing 
interests, and its exciting joys — that Ave can rightly 
draw nigh to God, and hold communion with Him 
— blessing every scene with the consciousness of his 
presence, and sanctifying it by cheerful obedience to 
his law. It is the traditional cant of a false theology, 
that Religion and the world are mutually repugnant. 
We should rather say, there can be no true Religion 
without the constant use and hearty enjoyment of 
the world. — To the virtuous. Heaven is the comple- 
ment of their life on earth ; and our own experience 
must teach us, we should be wholly unfit for the ex- 

c 2 



28 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

alted occupations and delights which we believe await 
us there, without the preparatory seasoning and dis- 
cipline of the stern or joyous realities that are thrown 
around us here. — Every one at his entrance into life,, 
should look on the world, as a field to be cultivated 
and a garden to be enjoyed. All that he needs, is 
the religious consecration of mind and heart, to secure 
as ample a return from the one as is necessary for 
the moral purposes of existence, and to gather a rich 
abundance of the sweetest satisfactions from the 
other. He should ask himself, as the wide and varied 
prospect opens round him — c What am I fit for ? and 
why have I been placed where I am?' — And when 
the answer comes to him from his own sincere and 
earnest heart, he should recognize his mission as 
from God, and religiously give up all his powers to 
fulfil it well. 

We need a wider interpretation of man's religious 
vocation in this life. It lies, I take it, in the zealous 
culture of his specific gift and entrusted talent, what- 
ever that may be — according to his discernment of 
the Divine law. As the world is now constituted, 
men's minds are often forced down by circumstances 
into spheres of action, for which inclination and apti- 
tude equally unfit them. And while this is so, patient 
submission, and an effort to make the best of what is 
unalterable — are plain dictates of prudence and duty, 
A faithful and energetic mind will master circum- 
stances. But as education is diffused and society 
developes itself, more choice of objects will be offered 
to various talents : and even now, as far as we can, 
we should endeavour to put men and women to the 



man's ascent to god. 



29 



task for which nature evidently intended them. More 
strongly marked character will be thus produced in 
individuals ; and the infinite riches and beauty, with 
the true use and enjoyment, of this world will be- 
come more apparent to every mind. We may pro- 
mote this salutary change, by dissipating the mistaken 
feeling which is now associated with the word respect- 
ability. Every social function is respectable, which fills 
its proper place, is exercised in the right spirit, and 
wields its appropriate talent. All things are parts of 
one great whole, and express together the benignant 
harmony of the Spirit of God. Whatever stimulates 
and gratifies a rational curiosity, though it yield no 
direct practical result — whatever awakens taste and 
sentiment, or throws a grace over the coarser realities 
of life, if cultivated in a holy and loving spirit — is as 
solid a good to mankind, as the heavy drudgery 
which heaps up riches year after year — and may be 
as truly religious — may as directly take the mind to 
God — as the mechanical routine of a traditional piety, 
and the cold and listless observances which dishonour 
many a sanctuary. We come, through this religious 
consecration of life, to view the entire universe as 
the dwelling-place of God — conversing through na- 
ture, history and. the human mind with Him — and 
sympathizing with the filial spirits that He has placed 
in the midst of it, to behold his glory and rejoice in 
his beneficence. In nature we witness the serene re- 
flection of his unchanging majesty and almightiness. 
In history we trace the grand results of his moral 
government, combining and accumulating from age 
to age, and interpreting, as they proceed, the great 



30 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

idea of his eternal Providence. In the workings of 
the human mind, we observe that He has left men, 
within certain fixed limits, to be their own teachers, 
and to profit by the fruits of their own experience. 
He has thus sanctioned in his own vast plan for the 
education of the human race, the great principles of 
self-reliance and self-government : yet has guarded 
the order of his creation, by setting bounds to the 
folly and wickedness of man, and through that won- 
derful alchemy which is everywhere at work in the 
moral world, transmuting their effects into means of 
higher good and more effectual instruction. 

(4.) Prepared by the progressive change which 
feeling, habit and action have undergone in this pro- 
cess of spiritual development, the mind passes on to 
the last and highest stage of the religious life. It 
arrives at the blessed consciousness of co-operating 
with God in the great design of his creation, and of 
being one in purpose and endeavour with Him. This 
consciousness is only intelligible on the supposition of 
man's free agency and partial independence of God. 
It has no meaning in the pantheistic theory. If God 
be always equally near to us, and we are equally a 
part of Him — whether we seek truth or falsehood — - 
whether we do good or evil — it is wholly irrelevant 
to our actual condition, to exhort us to draw nigh to 
Him and seek communion with Him. There is no 
room for the action of the will, and no occasion for 
the exercise of affection. We cannot be nearer to 
God, and we cannot be more remote ; for we are al- 
ready a portion of his living substance. 

When however we believe, that He, the all-perfect 



MAN'S ASCENT TO GOD. 



31 



and ever-blessed Spirit, must always immeasurably 
transcend our improvable but limited nature — it is 
joy unspeakable in our highest moods and holiest as- 
pirations — to feel that we can voluntarily draw nigher 
to Him and speak with Him, — to experience the an- 
swerings of his love — and to know, that if we keep 
our minds in this heavenward course, we shall ap- 
proach Him and become more intimate with Him 
through eternity. True union with God is the sym- 
pathy of our wills, and the co-operation of our endea- 
vours, with the benevolent and glorious tendencies 
that pervade his works — the finite working with the 
Infinite — not from mechanical necessity, but with 
spontaneous reverence and love, according to its mea- 
sure of insight and power — to bring forth and realize, 
wherever human agency extends, that ideal of truth 
and beauty and goodness, which glows and dilates in 
ever brighter and grander manifestation on the open- 
ing vision of all pure and earnest souls, as they climb 
the upward path towards higher worlds and the in- 
visible throne of God. 



32 



III. 

GOD'S DESCENT TO MAN. 
James It. a 

K Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh unto you. ;r 

In the foregoing discourse I illustrated the opening 
words of this text, c Draw nigh unto God 7 — and 
showed what efforts man could make, to lift himself 
up to God. I have now to speak of the promise 
which accompanies that exhortation — ' God will draw 
nigh unto you/ There will be mutual approximation. 
If you earnestly aspire towards God,, God will de- 
scend to meet your aspirations, and bless them with a 
clearer revelation of Himself. 

An adequate conception of this side of the relation^ 
is less within our reach than that of which we have 
already treated. When we start from Man, we have 
our daily experience to guide us to the truth. Our 
aspirations and our short-comings — our failures, pro- 
strations and revivals— are distinctly mapped out in 
our remembrance ; they are positive facts of consci- 
ousness, and the subject in its whole extent lies 
clearly and steadily exposed to our reflective gaze. It 
is very different, when we reverse the order of thought, 
and set out from the idea of God, and try to conceive 
of his direct action on the human spirit. We feeh 



god's descent to max. 



33 



that we are now approaching a theme, on which our 
knowledge bears an infinitesimal proportion to our 
ignorance. We sink beneath the effort to grasp it. 
The nature which we attempt to contradistinguish 
from our own, is too vast to be embraced by our 
thought. Whatever notion we can form of its direct 
and positive agency on our souls, is derivable — either 
from some rare and blessed moments which have 
broken in on our ordinary mental condition with in- 
fluences beyond ourselves — or from the manifold con- 
fessions of the devout est spirits, which irreligious men 
distrust and spurn because they have never known a 
similar experience. But if God be a living Spirit- — 
the Parent of free and responsible spirits — such a 
reciprocation of influence must subsist between Him 
and us ; and the more we cultivate intercourse with 
Him, the deeper will be our sense of its reality, and 
the distinct er our consciousness of His operation on 
the mind. 

To seize a definite conception and to prevent our 
being lost in vague and fathomless speculation, we 
must confine our attention specially to the moral re- 
lation which God sustains towards us — as a fact, wit- 
nessed by our own experience and by that of devout 
men in all ages. At one end at least of this relation, 
we encounter indisputable realities, and get hold of 
truths which no sophistry can wrest from us. If men 
whose characters are a warrant for their sincerity, 
and whose understandings on every other subject bear 
indubitable marks of soundness and vigour — -delibe- 
rately assure us, that in the highest moments of their 
being, when the soul most fervently aspires towards 

c 3 



34 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

God/ they have been conscious of an accession of 
spirit and life to their moral energies, which they had 
never found any mechanical effort of self-discipline— 
any mere volition, however earnest and sustained — at 
all adequate to produce — we have an attestation to 
the reality of the Divine agency on the human mind, 
which cannot be questioned without shaking the 
foundation of the largest part of that knowledge, on 
which in our intercourse with one another we are 
compelled to rely. 

First of all, then, let us endeavour to apprehend 
distinctly the difference of our relation to God as 
moral beings, and that of creatures which are either 
inanimate and unconscious, or actuated by simple in- 
stinct alone. Beings of the latter class — that is, all 
beings, so far as our knowledge extends, beside our- 
selves — sustain one uniform and unalterable relation 
towards God. What they were from the first, that 
they still are. They keep their original distance from 
God, which is incapable of either increase or diminu- 
tion. The law of their being has been established 
once for all, and by that they unchangeably abide. 
There is a part too of Man's nature which stands in 
the same immutable relation towards God — -subject 
to the mechanical, chemical, and physiological laws 
which embrace in one unvarying cycle of cause and 
effect, the whole of the material and animal creation. 
Up to this point, the Divine agency has limited itself 
to a fixed order of manifestation : what it is now, we 
rely on its continuing to be, so long as the present 
universe exists. But above this lower part of Man's 
nature which connects him with the laws of matter 



GOD S DESCENT TO MAN. 



35 



and the region of simple organism — there is a sphere 
of action into which God has infused a portion of his 
own free energy — a sphere, where will begins to ope- 
rate — that new and mysterious power, which affects 
human relations with God and renders them fluctu- 
ating — which can draw up the heart into the closest 
intimacy with its Parent Spirit, or throw it off to a 
distance in which the consciousness of the relation 
becomes almost extinct. 

Will is the ruling power in Man ; the functions of 
intellect are its ministers. His worth or his worth- 
lessness, as a moral agent, must be estimated from 
the habitual attitude of his will. Will, however, is 
not wholly lawless and unconfined. It acts within 
prescribed limits and on fixed conditions. There are 
convictions of which man's mind cannot divest itself, 
and which his will more or less assumes in all its re- 
solutions ; though it may sometimes act in defiance 
of them, and, by continued inattention, make them 
faint and dim. It is through such convictions, that 
the Spirit of God has immediate access to the human 
soul. There is, first, the sense of an agency external 
to man's will, and mightier than it — in which the 
belief in a sovereign Mind — a God — has its source. 
In its essence, this sense is perhaps inextinguish- 
able : — but as, on the one hand, it may be obscured 
and weakened to apparent annihilation; so, on the 
other, through the exercise of reason on the order 
and harmony of visible phenomena, and the habitual 
verification in them of the deeper faith which springs 
from the interior consciousness of mind itself, — it is 
capable of development into the clearest and most 

• 



36 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

undoubting conviction. — There is, secondly, the sense 
of the broad distinction between right and wrong— as 
the subjects of a free choice, to be finally appropriated 
by the will. Whatever actions and affections depen- 
dent on will, distinguish themselves to present appre- 
hension, as fit or unfit to be done and cherished under 
the circumstances given — excite in our minds a feel- 
ing of approval or disapproval which they cannot lay 
aside, though in particular cases, where self-interest 
is strongly at work, they may attempt to stifle or dis- 
guise it.— There is, thirdly, a sense of subjection to 
law — of responsibility for voluntary acts to a Higher 
Power — an apprehension of final retribution, corre- 
sponding to the moral order of the universe — which 
cleaves to the mind through all the sophistries of 
scepticism, and all the shifts and difficulties of a trou- 
bled and adverse life—and in which, down to man's 
lowest estate of despairing and hardened unbelief, 
they who have skill to probe the human conscience, 
may yet find undestroyed the seed of a belief in im- 
mortality. — These principles of faith — these tenden- 
cies (if we may not give them a more positive name) 
towards a recognition of the great spiritual realities 
of our being — are imbedded firm and deep in the 
bottom of every human soul — put there by the hand 
of God Himself — landmarks bounding in the dim 
region of our moral agency, which may at times be 
covered over and transgressed, but can never be torn 
up and carried away. 

Such in its essential features is the constitution of 
the nature which is fitted for communion with God — 
which has the promise, if it draw nigh to God, that 



GOD'°S DESCENT TO MAX. 



37 



God will draw nigh to it in return.- — We have now to 
consider, in what way this response of God to the 
aspirations of the human soul, becomes known. We 
discern it in a deeper and tender sense of his presence 
and operation, as a living Spirit — first, in things fixed 
by immutable laws and foreign to ourselves — and 
secondly, within the sphere of our personal conscious- 
ness — in things dependent on our own will and effort. 
— When the spiritual eye is opened by faith, a new and 
more glorious world reveals itself. We no longer see 
in God's workmanship and ordinances, a mere combi- 
nation and arrangement of material forms, impelled 
by dead forces, whose results can be calculated by the 
processes, and expressed by the symbols, of science — 
but through them we discern a deeper reality, living 
and working behind — modes of God's own agency, 
wherein He limits and qualifies His exhaust-less ener- 
gies — subjecting Himself to the restrictions of unde- 
viating law, that He may furnish a discipline for the 
culture of finite spirits — -and shrouding his glory in a 
corporeal veil, to spare the weakness of our mental 
vision. — God — who in the cold gaze of the philosophic 
intellect, retreats far away into the viewless depths 
of being, and is but a name for some mysterious, in- 
~ explicable Power, dimly apprehended by the under- 
standing and wholly unfelt by the heart — now comes 
back as a living Presence into the midst of his crea- 
tion, to revive with a genial warmth the chilled and 
awe- struck spirit, and draw it forth into grateful and 
happy communion with its Parent Mind. 

Now first Nature breaks the eternal silence, and finds 
an interpreter in that highest poetry through which 



38 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



God reveals his hidden thoughts to the awakened soul. 
This is not a mere aesthetic feeling. It is something 
purer and loftier than the simple emotions of taste. 
Else the most picturesque eye would be the unfailing 
attendant of the devoutest heart ; and the rarer the 
beauty of the external scene, the deeper would be 
the impression of the unseen God. But it is not so. 
It is not the snow-peak alone cleaving the blue vault 
with its dazzling whiteness — nor the dark pine woods 
that girt its base — nor the rumbling of the distant 
avalanche — nor the roar of the torrent in the deep 
ravine — nor the sweet sunlight reflected with a vivid 
green from the mountain-slope — nor the quiet tink- 
ling of the herdbells — nor the cheerful sounds of men 
and dogs mingling with the village chimes from the 
vale below — as they enter the mind through the 
charmed avenues of sense, and breathe into it a thrill 
of Alpine freedom and joy — that suffice of themselves 
to inspire the severer and holier feeling which shook 
the breast of the poet, when he owned the solemn 
presence of Deity in the awful solitudes of the Grande 
Chartreuse."^ For these are impressions which all 
must experience — the devout and the sceptical alike — 
whose perceptions have not been brutified by appetite 
or deadened by a sordid worldliness. They are a 
preparation and a help to piety — a soil where the 
devotional sentiment, if cast into it, will grow, and 
where it will be cherished, when already sown; but 

* £ Praesentioreni conspicimus Deuin 
Per invias rupes, fera per juga, 
Ciiyosque prseruptos, sonantes 

Inter aquas, neinoruraque noctem.' — Gray. 



GOD^S DESCENT TO MAN, 



39 



they must not be confounded with it. He only is 
filled with the true spirit of devotion, who recognizes 
in the outward forms of beauty, the mind of Him, 
who has chosen this mode of intercourse with his 
trustful and adoring offspring, i^mid the grandeur 
and loneliness of Nature, the souls of such men re- 
joice in the companionship of the Spirit of Nature. 
There is a deep worship within them, though no audi- 
ble prayers go forth at the lips. As heart answereth 
to heart in the converse of men, so they are conscious 
of a reciprocated sympathy with God : and from these 
ministrations at the fragrant altar of the great temple 
of the universe, they carry back with them a holier 
influence to consecrate the ordinary duties and affec- 
tions of the world. 

This devotional enjoyment of the visible works of 
God, is a sentiment peculiar to Christianity, and those 
prophetic influences which preceded it in the mind 
of the Hebrew race. We find nothing corresponding 
to it in the remains of classical literature. In the 
sacred odes of the Greeks and in the descriptive 
poetry of the Romans, there is not a passage to remind 
us of the sublime bursts of pious feeling, kindled by 
the aspects of creation, which break forth continually 
in the Psalms and that wonderful poem of Job. The 
reason is obvious. Polytheism could not fix the reli- 
gious affections with such intense concentration on a 
single object, as is required to awaken the profound - 
est veneration and awe ; nor amid the varied scenery 
of nature, could it inspire a calm faith in the omni- 
present guardianship and blessing of one Almighty 
Father. Its fabulous legends excited the imagination 



40 



CHRISTIAN 



ASPECTS OF FAITH 



AND DUTY. 



with their sensuous pictures, but left the affections 
untouched, and met with no response in the highest 
moral feeling. The purest minds shrank from their 
bewildering influence, and sought relief from the 
painful ideas of imperfection and strife, in the desolate 
unity of a mystic pantheism. The origin of a new 
feeling is due to the influence of a more spiritual 
Religion. We may even trace the rise of that senti- 
mental taste for beautiful scenery which so remarkably 
distinguishes the modern from the ancient mind — in 
the writings of the Christian Fathers of the fourth 
century — Basils Chiysostom, and the Gregories — those 
accomplished men, who united a classical culture with 
the Christian faith, and brought the sentiments of a 
warm and elevated monotheism, refined by literature, 
to the contemplation of Nature."* This delightful 
taste seems to have a natural affinity with Christian 
devotion — even in the more ascetic forms of its mani- 
festation. It is perceptible in the youthful fervour 
of the piety of St. Bernard. Under the severest 
exercises and mortifications of Citeaux, his spirit was 
still open to the softening influences of forest scenery, 
and he declared, he had often found his holiest inspi- 
rations in the vast silence of the woods of oak and 
beech which sheltered his retreat from the world. t 
Nor can it be a mere accident, that the remains of 
our ancient abbeys — consecrated in the purity of their 

* See tlie observations of Humboldt on this subject, (Cosmos, vol. 
ii. p. 25, English, transl.,) with the beautiful extract from a letter of 
Basil to Gregory Xazianzen. 

f Keander's 1 Heilige Bernard,' (p. 6, with note 4.) 'Believe me 
on my own experience," — he wrote in later years to a speculative the- 
ologian — ' thou wilt find more in the woods than in books ; trees 



GOD^S DESCENT TO MAX. 



41 



original intention to contemplation and prayer — 
should so constantly occur in the bosom of the love- 
liest valleys. 

But when the spirit of devotion is once awakened, 
it finds a beauty everywhere, because it beholds in all 
things the visible footsteps of God. The common 
heavens with their ever-varying light and shade — 
fields and rural lanes, such as embrace every town 
and village with their verdant cincture — all the ordi- 
nary haunts and habitations of men — lie warm and 
sunny and beautiful in the spirit's own brightness, 
and suffice for its serenest gratification. In the mo- 
notonous levels of our central England, Doddridge 
and Cowper asked for no grander objects to make 
them conscious of a Divine Presence, but as they 
strolled along the tall hedge-row or gazed on the 
slow-winding stream, gave up their souls to fervent 
communion with the Father and rejoiced to feel them- 
selves dwellers in His House.?* Nay, the city itself 
is not unblest with these heavenly inspirations. That 
gush of human sympathy that brought tears into 

and rocks will teach thee what thou canst never learn from masters/' 
— ep. 106. This was the doctrine of the banished duke in the forest 
of Arden : and Wordsworth says — 

1 One impulse from a vernal wood 
May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the sages can.' 
Elsewhere he calls himself one 

4 who loved the brooks 
Better than all the sages' books." 
* See the characteristic letters in Doddridge's Diary and Corre- 
spondence, vol. iv. pp. 124: and 211. Cowper* s 'Task' abounds with 
illustrations. 



42 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

Charles LamVs eyes, when he mingled in the living 
tide which pours through the streets of London, and 
he felt his heart beat responsive to the warm pulse 
of joy as it throbbed past hiro."*— what was it — but 
the vivid consciousness of God — the breath of the 
Father, softening the bosom over which it swept, and 
filling it with his own merciful tenderness towards 
the great family of man?— God comes down to us 
and visits us, when these pure and loving emotions 
take full possession of our souls : — and the life of 
God is then begun on earth — heaven is already open- 
ing its flood of joy on the heart — when that spiritual 
consciousness which once ebbed and flowed and left 
us at times hard and dry, swells up into a full and 
constant stream, and spreads its calm and equable 
blessing over the broken surface of our terrestrial 
course. 

Our intensest conviction of the presence of God — 
our clearest persuasion that He has drawn nigh to us 
— is not however when we are the quiet and contem- 
plative spectators of his works, or the passive reci- 
pients of outward influence — but in those higher ex- 
ercises of faith which engage our wills, and put us on 
virtuous effort, and excite us to active co-operation 
with Him — when we seek Him and believe that we 
have found Him, in the glad appropriation of every 
duty, and the cheerful acceptance of every sacrifice, 
which He demands. It is in crises like these, that 
the Spirit of God descends into the hearts of the 
faithful and devoted, and endues them with a power 
and a wisdom not of this world. They are perplexed 
# Lamb's Letters and Life, by Talfourd, vol. i. p. 213. 



GOD'S DESCENT TO MAN. 



43 



with, anxieties and fears ; but they commit themselves 
in simple fidelity to Him ; — and peace comes back to 
them again. They could not see their way ; but they 
asked in faith for guidance; — and light once more 
descended on their path. Beset with snares, they felt 
themselves weak and frail ; but they sought God in 
prayer ; — and His presence was realized, and new 
strength was at their side. Guided by an honest 
reason, and true to the voice within, they have sur- 
rendered themselves to faith : — it is a lamp to illumi- 
nate their way, and a spirit and a power to control 
and shape the outward tendencies of things. Their 
whole spiritual being is drawn up to God, and re- 
plenished with His fulness. Mighty in Him, they go 
forth to master difficulties, trample down temptations, 
endure afflictions, and do the whole work that is con- 
fided to them. 

Every self-sacrifice to right and truth — every high 
and earnest effort of heroic duty — brings with it a 
witness of the sustaining strength of God, and draws 
Him down into closer communion with the believing 
soul. "When Lindsey forsook the Church to which 
early attachment and worldly interest so strongly 
bound him, and at the bidding of conscience chose 
poverty and probable neglect for his worldly portion 
— can we doubt that he had a redoubled conscious- 
ness of the Divine presence, and felt the Father a 
living comforter to his soul — at that trying moment, 
when amidst the farewells of weeping parishioners, 
he bent his pilgrim feet from the venerable House of 
Prayer and the comfortable home to which so many 
tender memories clung, and threw himself on the un- 



44 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



certain accidents of a cold and unsympathizing world?"* 
When Clarkson knelt on the sod, and in the face of 
Heaven vowed to consecrate his life to the abolition 
of the traffic in human flesh and blood — did not that 
prayer spring from an absorbing sense of his spirit's 
union with God, and bring down as its response a ho- 
lier impulse and a diviner strength to go and achieve 
the blessed work of justice and mercy ?f In devout 
natures the love of God ripens into an ardent attach- 
ment which can replace every other affection. It re- 
conciles them to neglect and privation in the world, 
and cheers them in solitude with a constant feeling of 
invisible companionship and sympathy. The hymns of 
the TTesleys, thrown off from the heart under the daily 
experience of scorn and persecution, overflow in every 
line with the rich unction of this passionate devotion. 

There are undoubtedly great differences of original 
temperament in this respect. Some minds are spon- 
taneously more devotional than others. But perse- 
verance in uprightness from religious motives is sure, 
in the natural order of spiritual development; to is- 
sue in a deepened consciousness of God's immediate 
access to the soul to sustain and comfort it. This 
susceptibility of religious impression and spiritual in- 
sight varies also in races of men as well as in indi- 
viduals. We find it in its highest form among the 
ancient Hebrews— connected with the recognition of 
one God, and of his intimate relation to their moral 

* Belsham's Memoirs of Lindsay, ch. ii. p. 84, with note, record- 
ing the testimony of an eye-witness. 

t History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, vol. i. ch. vii. and 
viii. See also Lamb's Letters and Life, vol. ii. p. 118. 



GOD's DESCENT TO MAX. 



45 



condition. It was the foundation of the prophetic 
faculty so powerfully and so wonderfully exercised by 
the greatest minds of that remarkable people, No- 
where in the world's history do we meet with an 
order of men who can be compared for depth and 
energy of spiritual influence, with the ancient pro- 
phets of the Hebrews. Not altogether does the ori- 
ginal gift or aptitude appear to have been dependent 
on moral qualifications. Hence we read at times even 
of true prophets whose whole character it is impos- 
sible to commend. It was evidently however enfeebled 
and dimmed by moral neglect, and then only assumed 
its highest clearness and force, when it co-operated 
with a pure and upright will, and put forth its energy 
in a holy and self-denying life. The recorded oracles 
of the Old Testament lead plainly to the conclusion, 
that the essence of the prophetic faculty consists in 
intuitive perception of the fundamental realities of 
the invisible world — the unity and spirituality of God 
—His providence and moral rule — man's personal 
responsibility to Him — the sure retributions of a so- 
vereign justice — and the inward peace that must be 
found in the enjoyment of the Divine acceptance and 
blessing. The sense of these realities seems to belong 
more to the native constitution of some minds than 
of others, just as there are men who, by their organi- 
zation have a readier apprehension of the relations of 
sounds and the harmony of colours := — and the origi- 
nal pre-adaptation to discern them, is the root of the 
prophetic character— the germ of that spiritual affec- 
tion which aspires after intercourse with God, and 
draws Him down into a closer and more living com- 



46 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 



munion with Man. "Where this spiritual pre-disposi- 
tiou co-exists Trith the greatest purity and power and 
disinterestedness of moral character — where there is 
the most sustained and strenuous effort to rise up to 
God; bringing back the largest and most direct action 
of His Spirit on the soul itself, so that the Spirit is 
not stinted in its flow, but cements the Divine and 
the Human into a perfect harmony — there all the 
conditions of a complete prophetic manifestation unite 
— there we behold 'the desire of all nations' — that 
ideal of Humanity, which is the object of yearning 
and aspiration to every devout heart. It is the satis- 
faction of these highest demands of man's soul in 
J esus of Nazareth, which is the ground of our faith 
in Him — calls forth our sympathy and our trust — 
and bids us own and accept him as the Christ — the 
moral Saviour of the world. 

A true prophet acts on elements of kindred feeling 
in less gifted and awakened souls. By his attractive 
force in word and deed, he draws them out of dark- 
ness and degradation towards the light and eminence 
of his own more favoured being ; and as they ap- 
proach him, and more freely sympathize with him, 
causes the blessing of God to settle on their minds, 
even as it rests on his own. Yea, as they abide stead- 
fast and faithful to their heavenly calling, arid the 
spirit of Christ enters into and renovates their hearts 
— they rise up step by step to the height of his own 
prophetic vision — till they behold and meet and bow 
their faces before the living God, whom he has evoked 
from the dark deeps of the universe, and made visible 
to the human soul. 



god's descent to man. 



47 



This clear and vivid consciousness of the Divine 
presence is like the breathing of a nevr life and a new 
spirit into all things. "When it comes to us, it trans- 
forms the universe. We are no more the subjects of 
dulness, apathy, gloom, or fear. Who has not felt 
the difference of acting from the heart with convic- 
tion and sympathy, and acting as a mere slave to au- 
thority in the dull mechanism of routine and habit ? 
Such is the difference between the awakened and the 
unawakened soul. Do you desire an innocent relish 
of this terrestrial life ? Would you taste the blessing 
that is so richly infused into the universe? Seek 
and cherish the visitations of the Parent Spirit. He 
is the inner light that shines through all things 
grand and beautiful. His is the impulsive energy that 
prompts whatever is noble and glorious ; and His the 
plenteous joy that gushes forth in our pure affections 
and bathes the soul in its most exquisite happiness. 
All that gladdens and elevates your being — all that 
lifts you above the meanness and baseness of the 
world — all that binds you to the sanctities of duty — 
all that soothes and blesses you in the bosom of 
household love and in the society of gifted and vir- 
tuous spirits — comes to you from God \ is the inspi- 
ration of your Father descending on your soul ; the 
token of His presence ; the witness of His sympathy 
with those aspirations of your higher nature which 
will fit you for never-ending intercourse and commu- 
nion with Him. 



48 



IV. 

CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 

1 Timothy ii. 5, 6. 
ec One Grod, and one mediator between God and men, the man 
Christ Jesns ; who gave himself a ransom for all." 

It may be deemed an objection to founding any 
Christian doctrine on these words, that they occur 
in the only one of thirteen epistles bearing the name 
of the apostle Paul, the authenticity of which has 
been gravely controverted by some learned men in 
recent times. * Without however insisting on the fact, 
that these doubts have not been universally or even 
generally shared — it may suffice to reply, that the 
writing, whoever be its author, is unquestionably very 
ancient, and represents the feeling and opinion of 
the first age of the Church. Moreover, the doctrine 
set forth by the text is substantially in unison with 
that of the other Epistles, and with the pervading 
tenour of the New Testament. The term mediator- 
is twice used in Galatians of Moses, as the intro- 
ducer of the Old Dispensation, (iii. 19, 20;) and three 
times in Hebrews of Jesus himself, as the mediator 
of the New, (viii. 6, ix. 15, xii. 24.) Twice in the 
gospels, (Matth. xx. 28, Mark x. 25,) has our Lord 

* The reference is to Schleiermacher's criticism, c Ueber den so- 
genannten erst en Brief des Panics an den Timotheos. 5 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



49 



spoken of his death, as a ransom paid for many. 
There can be no reasonable doubt, therefore, that the 
doctrine of our text is a doctrine of genuine and 
primitive Christianity. 

In this doctrine the grand and prominent idea is 
that of mediation, as fulfilled and completed by the 
willing sacrifice of life to religious duty. Man, in his 
highest mood of thought, aspires to God. God meets 
and accepts the sincere aspirations of man. A medi- 
ator is one who, by the influence of his life and doc- 
trine, quickens, facilitates, and fixes this spiritual 
intercourse between the soul and its Creator. Let us 
notice the three points specially brought under our 
view by the text, in the mediatorial office of Christ. 
— First, he stands alone. e There is one mediator be- 
tween God and men, the man Christ Jesus/ This 
can only refer to unrivalled pre-eminence, not to ex- 
clusive function. For all higher minds do in fact me- 
diate between their less gifted fellow -creatures and 
the great realities of the invisible world. The sages 
and poets of heathendom kindled the first glimmer- 
ings of a religious life in fierce and brutal natures, 
and made them capable of civilization. Moses and 
the prophets were the mediators of a truth, that 
struck deeper into the heart of humanity, and pre- 
pared it for higher spiritual development. On their 
foundation Christ erected his Church as an universal 
and final dispensation — offering to all who accent him 
as the Sent of God, the surest medium of access to 
the Divine Presence. — Secondly, he is a human medi- 
ator, 'the man Christ Jesus' — not a being from an- 
other sphere, an angel or a God — but a brother from 

D 



50 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



the bosom of our own human family — exposed to our 
temptations, touched with our griefs, and sharing our 
affections — who goes in front of the host of immortal 
spirits— the sinless captain of their salvation — to cheer 
their hearts, and guide their steps, and bear up their 
prayers to the Father's throne. — Thirdly, ' he gave him- 
self a ransom for all 3 who embrace his offers and will 
hearken to his voice. He brings from God a general 
summons to repent ; and with that he conveys through 
faith, a spiritual power to shake off the bondage of 
sin, and put on the freedom of a new heart and a new 
life. He is a Deliverer from the power of sin and 
the fear of death. This is the end of his mediation. 
This is the redemption of which he paid the price. 
His death, cheerfully met in the inevitable sequence 
of faithful duty, was only one among many links in 
the chain of instrumentalities by which that deliver- 
ance was effected. It was a proof, such as could be 
given in no other way, of trust in God and immor- 
tality, of fidelity to duty, and of love for mankind. 
In those who earnestly contemplated it, and saw all 
that it implied, it awoke a tender response of grati- 
tude and confidence, which softened the obdurate 
heart, and opened it to serious impressions and the 
quickening influences of a religious spirit. 

Such were the actual workings of the death of 
Jesus on the minds of simple and devout believers ; 
such were the spiritual realities grasped and appro- 
priated, amiclst a mass of extraneous conceptions in 
which they were enveloped and disguised. The exe- 
cution of Christ, as a disturber of the established 
order of things, between two common malefactors — 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



51 



was an offensive image — from which, in its naked 
bareness, the mind of Jew and Gentile equally re- 
coiled. When, therefore, they looked upon it after- 
wards frorn the higher ground of faith — they clothed 
it with a mystical significance, and associated it with 
elements of belief still subsisting in their minds from 
an earlier and more rudimental dispensation;* The 
whole public and sacerdotal religion of antiquity, 
whether Jewish or Heathen, was based on the idea of 
atonement and propitiation — the necessity of appeas- 
ing with sacrifice the wrath of Deity excited by human 
sin; and so deeply had that anthropomorphic con- 
ception rooted itself in the mind of the multitude, 
that it was impossible even for the energy of a hea- 
ven-descended gospel to extirpate it at once. Thus, 
higher and lower conceptions of God's relationship 
to his creatures, still maintained a latent antago- 
nism in the popular creed. Simple and earnest be- 
lievers, obeying the spontaneous impulse of old asso- 
ciations, and unconscious of any inconsistency with 
the juster principles which they had more recently 
imbibed — spoke of the death of Christ, as in itself 
and directly a ransom of the forfeited souls of men, 
from impending destruction- — a propitiation, which 
took away all hindrance to a free communication of 
the Divine Mercy, and put men in a condition to re- 
ceive its refreshing streams on their cleansed and jus- 
tified souls. 

* The epistle to the Hebrews — written probably under the influ- 
ence of an Alexandrine Judaism — exhibits this intermediate state of 
mind, transferring to the Grospel with a spiritualized application, 
ideas and feelings that had been cherished under the Law. 

D 2 



52 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



This supposition of an admixture of foreign ele- 
ments with the predominant purport of the glad tid- 
ings of Divine Love, accounts most naturally for the 
appearance of certain passages in the New Testament, 
which only by a forced and doubtful interpretation 
can be brought into accordance with what we justly 
accept as the fundamental doctrine of Christianity — 
the free, unpurchased mercy of God. Left to them- 
selves and the free development of the spirit of Christ 
— the vital elements of gospel truth would long ago 
have blighted in their mighty shadow, those growths 
of Jewish and Heathen superstition, which shot up 
beneath them in the unweeded soil of humanity. But 
the perverseness of theological science systematized 
alike the false and the true, the transitory and the 
permanent, and inscribed them all with a title of 
equal authority. And in later times a narrow and 
scrupulous bibliolatry has fancied it more reverent to 
extort from words a meaning they were never meant 
to yield, than to admit in a single instance, that 
Scripture could be the vehicle of notions which belong 
to a bygone age. 

Two considerations are of much weight in connec- 
tion with this subject: (1.) the deep craving after a 
spiritual mediator in the popular mind of all ages, 
with the evident need of one, fully and healthfully 
to develope its religious life : and (2.) the marvellous 
fulfilment of the required conditions of such media- 
tion in the person of Christ. The religious sentiment 
abandoned to merely natural influences, without the 
guidance of some mind of profounder spiritual insight, 
is ever prone to diverge into the opposite extremes of 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



53 



polytheism and pantheism. We conceive it to have 
been the special function of the old Hebrew prophecy, 
in the order of providence, as it still is of the Gospel 
of Christ — to uphold the piind in a just mean between 
these extremes — to exclude on the one hand material 
representations and multiform conceptions of Deity, 
and on the other to fix the mind with a definite faith, 
on God as a person — a conscious Mind — surveying 
with a moral interest the voluntary acts of his crea- 
ture, man. Where the native impulses of the multi- 
tude have been exempted from this higher direction, 
we find them either absorbed by a bewildering super- 
stition, or lapsing into a powerless unbelief. If men 
are governed by their feelings and their imagination, 
they make to themselves gods of their sensations, and 
endow with the reflected attributes of their own being, 
the agency in nature — terrific, voluptuous, or benefi- 
cent — by which they are themselves most intensely 
awed and captivated and thrilled. The natural man 
puts himself forth without disguise in his primitive 
faith and worship. Diversities of individual character, 
the hereditary temperament of race, influences of cli- 
mate and locality — the mountain ridge or the luxu- 
riant vale, the woodland or the boundless steppe — 
all have their effect in shaping out the objects of 
human adoration, and determining the rites and offer- 
ings by which they are to be conciliated and appeased. 
The old polytheism was as varied in its aspects as Na- 
ture herself. It was Nature in the plenitude of sen- 
suous wealth, projecting the shadow of her gorgeous 
but coarse imagery on the pure expanse of the Infi- 
nite ; not the might and glory of the Infinite coming 



54 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 



down on Nature with resistless influence to chasten 
and spiritualize her -wild energies, and humble them 
m reverent submission to the law of the Eternal. 
Here bewildered parents placed their writhing infants 
in the burning arms of Moloch, to the hideous clang 
of temple-music ; and there brutal voluptuaries wal- 
lowed in the orgies of Astarte and Mylitta. The 
stern war-god, whose priests circled his altar with 
their frantic sword-dance"* — the Arcadian Artemis, 
prolific of life, and brooding over the elemental seeds 
of things in the depth of sylvan glades and the ooze 
of fertilizing springs f — Pan, the fancied echoes of 
whose mystic pipe were heard in sheltered valleys 
amidst the bleating of lambs and the lowing of kine 
— and Apollo whose radiant car, as it rolled through 
the heavens, poured down a flood of life and joy on 
the beaming face of this nether world — were more 
than names, in the days of early and unquestioning 
faith, to adorn a poem or give a religious solemnity 
to the usages of life : — they were a reality — a living 
presence — to the fond and credulous votary, who be- 
held in them the reflection of his own sentient being, 
and worshiped them for their congeniality with his 
spontaneous belief. 

But there were minds of another order — contem- 
plative, and capable of reasoning. With them the 
religions sentiment took a different direction, and 

* Bellicrepa saltatio. ' Evoir\ios opxv&iS' — Fesfus. 

f Der alte Arkader sicli seine Artemis als eine an Qnellen und 
Teichen wohnende Natorgottin da elite, ^welche die Jungen des 
Wildes, wie das Menschenkind, trankt und erzieht und gedeihen 
lasst.— K. 0, Miiller, Wissenschaftlich. Myiholog. p. 76, 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



55 



tended through successive phases of opinion, to self- 
extinction. They observed, how the apparently con- 
flicting agencies of nature ultimately mingled and 
coalesced in certain broad and pervading results — till 
they attained to the conception of a vast connected 
whole, wherein but few could recognize the expression 
of Sovereign .Mind. They who were reputed wisest^ 
called it Nature, and for the most part meant by that, 
an eternal Law — an all-controlling Necessity—within 
whose changeless bosom things rose, and perished, 
and rose again, in never-varying cycle — but void of 
consciousness, to sympathize with the beings it em- 
braced — void of will, to command a moral obedience 
— and void of love, to inspire a responsive affection. 

In neither of the extremes now described, can 
minds in which the moral sense is at all awakened, 
or which have any glimpses of spiritual insight, rest 
content. Perplexed and ill at ease, they look round 
for some guide to the highest truth — some authentic 
interpreter of the great mystery of their being. There 
is a craving for light, and a willingness to accept it 
from any quarter, if only it can offer reasonable cre- 
dentials of a heavenly source. As the old faiths die 
out and philosophy proves its hollowness, every one 
of holy and benevolent life is listened to with defe- 
rence, and gladly welcomed as a messenger from God, 
who gives evidence of authority to declare His will 
and manifest His presence, and to define and make 
plain the terms of intercourse between Him and His 
creatures. It is in the clear recognition of a living 
God, and of His personal relations of authority and 
affection towards the human race — that the power of 



56 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



Religion consists, Religions natures demand some- 
thing more than the bare abstractions of reason, 
They desire some visible token of the nnseen Pre- 
sence — something concrete and historical which they 
can lay hold of and distinctly realize to the mental 
eye. They feel it a relief, in the spiritual vastness 
which encompasses them, to be able ta rest their be- 
wildered vision on an actual personality, clothed in 
the form of human affections and moving within the 
limits of human events, through which they can be- 
come more vividly conscious of their individual rela- 
tion to God, and discern as by a light from heaven, 
what they must be and do to enter into loving com- 
munion with Him. In perceiving their ignorance of 
many things seen to be of vital interest to their su- 
preme well-being, they gladly throw themselves on an 
authority, which is proportionate to their awakened 
moral sentiment, and which commands their fullest 
reverence and trust. 

On feelings allied to these, priestcraft and sorcery, 
it is true, have often fastened themselves, and ac- 
quired a withering and debasing influence over the 
mind. But the want expressed by them, is not the 
less real because selfish and ambitious men have 
abused it to their own ends. When the direction given 
comes from a pure source, and is associated, as in the 
case of the Hebrew prophets, with a monotheistic 
and profoundly moral faith — it is of immense and 
most beneficent influence in the development of the 
religious life. In the Israelitish race, and those por- 
tions of the human family that were influenced by 
them, it cherished the elements of true Religion, and 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



0 > 



kept them from being scattered and lost. It trained 
up the mind to a moral ripeness for the comprehen- 
sion of Christ's wisdom and for sympathy with his 
sanctity and love. — It may be alleged, that all this, 
however useful in its time and place, was but a rudi- 
mental and transient process ; that Christ appeared, 
did his work, and passed away j and that having pro- 
claimed great principles, which delivered mankind 
from the thraldom of a priesthood, the degradation of 
an idolatrous polytheism, and the mechanism of out- 
ward law — his farther mediation between God and 
man became unnecessary and can have no relation 
to us. In reply to this suggestion, let us examine 
what are the facts of history and the testimonies of 
experience ? 

When the Church interposed its veil of sacerdotal 
rite and mystic symbolism between the mind of Christ 
and the mind of his flock, cut off the living inter- 
course of the Spirit, and closed up the light of the 
Eternal Word in the darkness of an unknown tongue ; 
— when the multitudes were again surrendered to 
their natural impulses, scarce checked by a faint tra- 
dition of the primitive Gospel, and the instructions of 
a clergy only less ignorant than themselves, or if 
blest with more light in the upper grades, too proud 
and too timorous to descend into the conflict with 
popular barbarism ; — what did Europe behold ? The 
reappearance of one of the evils which it had been 
the object of Christianity to expel; — the rise of a new 
polytheism, which brought back again the hero- 
worship of antiquity — covered the land with strange 
altars — repeopled its woods, its fountains, and its hills 



58 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

with a fresh mythology — and driving the Father out 
of sight into the hidden depths of the universe, trans- 
formed the lowly and gentle Christ into a being of 
terrible and vengeful omnipotence, and embodied 
what yet remained of the beneficence of deity, in 
the maternal sweetness and purity of the Queen of 
Heaven. 

Is it urged, that Science was the destined corrective 
of these tendencies ? But does Science, in dissipating 
superstition, always spare the vitality of Religion it- 
self? Has not experience shown, that the recognition 
of a Christ, a personal, historical manifestation of the 
living God — is still needed for the preservation of a 
true monotheism in the soul of man ? Observe the 
present movement of philosophic intellect in Europe, 
As Science disjoins itself from Christianity, or merely 
allows it a place among the general agents of civili- 
zation — a power developed in the natural order of 
things, not an influence sent down from heaven, to 
reconcile humanity with God ; — the result is rarely 
the adoption of a pure and elevated theism, but too 
often the reduction of deity to a mere force — the 
substitution of mechanical law for living will — the 
exclusion of intelligence from the foundations of the 
universe, and the recognition of it in man alone, as 
the true divinity of our world, the consummation of 
its progressive development — bringing with him into 
the system of things, an agency before unknown and 
nowhere else to be found. 

But let us leave philosophers out of the question, 
and think only of that immense mass of men for 
whose maintenance in the paths of virtue, Religion 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



59 



is more especially required. How do they stand af- 
fected towards a mediator ? Are they in spiritual 
matters able to walk alone ? Apart from that autho- 
ritative judgment which millions of the best men have 
agreed with unexampled unanimity through a long se- 
ries of ages, to concede to one pre-eminent life, how 
can they select for themselves, amidst so many com- 
petitors for their confidence, the one Teacher and 
Guide who will most safely conduct them in the road 
to Heaven? If they throw off the yoke of Christ, 
what can they assume in its stead ? We are reason- 
ably required to suggest a substitute for that which 
is renounced. The multitudes cannot be left to them- 
selves. They want a standard and a direction; and 
the existence of such want leads us to expect — or all 
the analogies of creation deceive us — that the means 
of satisfying it will not have been withheld by Pro- 
vidence. Confining our attention now to that portion 
only of the human race with which we by descent 
and circumstance are immediately connected — let us 
consider how Christ, who is still mentally present with 
us in the New Testament, seems qualified, by the 
adaptation of his person and work to our spiritual ne- 
cessities, to act as a mediator between us and God. 

The spirit of Religion exerts its strongest influence 
through the moral part of our nature. When moral 
culture is neglected, or outrun by a disproportionate 
development of mere intellectual activity, those high- 
est and most ethereal feelings which have God for 
their object, evaporate and vanish. Great mischief 
has ever resulted from this want of harmony in the 
culture of the faculties ; and we are not without ex- 



60 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

perience of its effects in the stage of civilization at 
which we have now arrived. The lust of wealthy the 
constant struggle for social position, the fever of com- 
petition, the contagion of popular bewilderment, the 
absorbing spirit of association — even the discoveries of 
physical science and the triumphs of art, and the mar- 
vellous helps which they afford to material progress- 
distract the mind from self-introspection, and amidst 
the glare and whirl of outward pliant asms, almost 
deaden it to the perception of the great invisible reali- 
ties that lie enshrined in the depths of conscience. Our 
civilization, therefore, wonderful as it is, is not an un- 
mixed good. We are less thrown on ourselves than 
formerly. We have too many pretexts and tempta- 
tions to devolve our personal responsibilities on So- 
ciety. We are but units — each severally of small 
account— in huge masses of consolidated interest, to 
the weight and workings of which the predominant 
philosophy chiefly directs our attention. The soul, 
once so precious even in the humblest of mortals, 
that minds as richly endowed as a Baxter's, held it 
their first duty to watch over it and pray for it, till 
they had satisfactory evidence of its conversion — has 
well nigh become a nonentity. The creeds of former 
generations — undermined and rotten — are giving way, 
- — and so far, they might go without regret : but too 
often they carry away in their ruins, the seeds of that 
faith in the divine and the eternal, without which our 
nobler nature starves and perishes. In the face of 
such facts as these, can we doubt, that there is still 
need for mediation between man and God — for some 
stronger infusion of spiritual influence into human af- 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



61 



fairs — for the living action of Christ's own spirit — no 
more intercepted by priests, or darkened by dogmas, 
or choked with prejudice and ignorance — on the open 
and expectant sonls of myriads of tried, tempted, and 
suffering men? 

The first thing is — to set vividly before them, and 
make them feel, the great and lovely virtue there was 
in Christ, — and by this exhibition, to quicken their 
sense of moral deficiencies, and excite their moral 
longings and aspirations. Contrition, humiliation, 
deep-felt unwortkiness and sin, consciousness of the 
wide chasm between themselves and God — such emo- 
tions are in most men the beginnings of a religious 
life — the moving of the Spirit over the dark and trou- 
bled waters of the soul : and in these emotions the 
want of a Mediator — some heavenly Counsellor and 
Guide — is intensely experienced — One who shall take 
us by the hand, and lead us up to God. and give us 
assurance of his Fatherly compassion and abounding 
love. Overwhelmed with shame and remorse, the soul 
feels itself shut out from God. How can it gain ac- 
cess to Him ? Christ rises before the thoughts of the 
smitten and downcast penitent — the Friend of sin- 
ners, and the Comforter of the sorrowing— the Per- 
fection of Holiness, but also the Perfection of Love. 
To the bruised heart and smarting conscience he 
applies the healing balm of Divine Mercy. The felt 
adaptation of his Gospel to the deepest wants of our 
souls, disposes us to embrace it as a word of peace 
from Heaven : and the secret witness of the Spirit 
seals it as authenticallv divine. The burden is taken 
away. Free access is opened to God. Despair va- 



62 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OP FAITH AND DUTY. 



nishes ; hope springs up in its place ; and power from 
on high gives new vigour to commence a nobler life. 
Thus Christ offers himself to the soul, as a spiritual 
medium of approach to God ; fixes its upward gaze ; 
defines its apprehensions ; sustains its soarings towards 
the Infinite; discloses to the inward eye things in- 
visible, and familiarizes them to the affections. 

Christ is fitted for this office of spiritual mediator 
— as a man — not a mere man, but the Ideal of Man 
■ — living, as no other hath ever done, in pure and un- 
broken harmony with the Father — advanced to that 
point in the order of moral development, where God 
and man are at one. As Christ was not a god, his 
genuine service can never degenerate into idolatry. 
The orthodox do not worship a deified man, but the 
one true God, through some mysterious process united 
with man. Christ was the highest prophet of mono- 
theism — a servant and worshiper of the universal 
Father. — Neither was he a priest. Only by figure 
and comparison, in a single book of Scripture, is he 
so designated. He does not interpose to prevent our 
immediate intercourse with God, but simply conducts 
us to Himu TThen he has drawn us up to his own 
height of vision, and given us confidence to look in 
the face of our Father, he steps back into the same 
line with ourselves, and delivers us over to God, 
that our souls may henceforth subsist, like his own, 
in direct contact with the Eternal Mind. Christ 
stands before us in the Gospel, as the Head of the 
great brotherhood of man — displaying in perfection 
the spirit which should circulate through the subordi- 
nate grades of humanity and consecrate them to the 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR, 



33 



service of God — -charged with functions and invested 
with responsibilities, which we in our narrower range 
of action and influence are equally bound to take up 
and fulfil. The Divine in him does not overpower the 
Human, but coalesces with it. His very miracles do 
not raise him above humanity ; they only expand its 
sphere, and heighten its manifestation. It is the light 
of human affection which makes them beautiful, They 
are not some vast overwhelming influence descending 
at once from the skies on the lowly bearing and hum- 
ble lot of the houseless prophet of Nazareth — but 
gently follow his steps wherever he goes, like a halo 
of love from the depth of his human heart — the ex- 
haled essence of his inmost being, radiating from its 
material vehicle, and expressing the mysterious inter- 
fusion of his spirit with the Omnipresent Mind that 
breathes through nature and moulds it at will. 

The great task of his life — mediation between God 
and man — was crowned and completed by his death. 
In the preaching of his apostles he is proclaimed to 
us as the risen and ascended Christ — the glorified 
inhabitant of a heavenly world. And that is the re- 
lation which he permanently sustains to us, as the 
Ideal of our perfected humanity. Into that glorious 
world, he constantly beckons us to follow him, A 
dark and fearful tide rolls between that realm of 
light and ours. Thousands cross it every hour, and 
vanish to our mortal eye. But the voice of the Holy 
One comes to us in that awful transition with words 
of comfort across the abyss, If we are his, we need 
not fear. If the mind that was in him, be also in us, 
we shall be sharers of his immortal inheritance. He 



64 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

has gone before, and opened to us the gates of a bound- 
less future : and the brief record of his earthlv course 
reveals enough of his trials and his sorrows, and of 
that patient spirit of love by which he wrought wis- 
dom out of them, and transformed them into blessed- 
ness — to give us clear insight into the duty and des- 
tiny of man — to connect in one solemn view the pre- 
parations of time and the issues of eternity — to show 
us how we must act and suffer through all the vicissi- 
tudes of this terrestrial scene, to be united at last 
with him, our sou?s best Friend and holiest Coun- 
sellor, in the rest and joy of our Father's house. 



65 



V. 

THE HARMONY OE THE DIVINE AND HUMAN 
4 IN CHRIST. 

Luke xxii. 41, 2, 3, 4, 5* 

" And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and 
kneeled down, and prayed, 

" Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me : 
nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done. 

w And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthen- 
ing him. 

" And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly : and his sweat 
was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground, 

"And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, 
he found them sleeping for sorrow," 

No doctrine was a more fertile source of unprofitable 
controversy in the early ages of the Church, and in 
its orthodox enunciation has more perplexed the mind 
with irreconcilable contradictions, than that of the 
two natures in Christ. Yet there is a view, in which 
it may be shown to possess a certain affinity with 
ultimate truth— to fill a place at least in the order of 
thought, where a truth should be. The co-existence 
of two natures — or more correctly of two elements, 
two tendencies, in one nature-— is the attribute of 
universal humanity, and therefore pre-eminently of 
Christ, as its ideal — its highest embodied manifesta- 
tion. In him alone we perceive a perfect union of 



66 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



the two elements. He alone blends and harmonizes 
the two tendencies. Our language is deficient in terms 
that mark with precision the distinction between the 
elements in question. Divine and human are inade- 
quate; for some infusion of the divine enters into 
every true conception of humanity . The apostle Paul 
most nearly perhaps expresses the distinction that we 
all feel without being able exactly to explain it, where 
he contrasts the spiritual* with the natural ,j and 
says — 'that was not first which is spiritual, but that 
which is natural; and afterward that which is spi- 
ritual/ (1 Cor. xv. 46.) To avoid unnecessary devia- 
tion from established modes of speech, and to bring 
the view here proposed, into more direct comparison 
with the orthodox theory, I shall not wholly abandon 
the terms — divine and human: but when they are 
used, it must be recollected, it is in the sense which 
Paul attaches to spiritual and natural. What that 
sense is, and how it applies to the person of Christ, 
I shall now inquire. 

If there be a God, a spiritual world, and a future 
life — and our Christian faith implies, that we assume 
these truths — then we do not misrepresent man's con- 
dition, by supposing him placed on the verge of two 
connected states of being in the ascending scale of 
creation — a link between the angel and the brute — 
the most highly gifted tenant of earth, qualified, on 
his departure from it— if its preparatory discipline has 
been rightly used — to join the ranks of higher intel- 
ligences. This principle of progressive development 
—this consciousness of destination to a more exalted 

* Tb irvevtxQLTiKbv. f Tb xj/vxiKov, 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 



67 



future — involves an antagonism in man's nature, when 
its moral feelings have been once awakened, between 
the lower instincts and their resulting efforts which 
form the basis of his existence here, and the aspira- 
tions which are continually bearing him out of the 
present, into the hope of a more perfect state here- 
after. In this struggle, his moral discipline consists. 
On no other terms could he be at once a dweller on 
earth and an heir of heaven. His privileges and his 
perils — his sublimest joys and darkest sorrows — joys 
and sorrows of whose intensity inferior natures have 
no perception — are a consequence of the critical posi- 
tion which he is appointed to fill. He is a compound 
of the natural and the spiritual. We recognize in 
him at once the merely human, and an incipient in- 
fluence of the divine. The natural or simply human 
is not, as a popular theology represents it, in itself 
evil. In its original destination, like everything else 
which proceeds from God, it is good. It only becomes 
evil by the abuse of our free agency. It is as much 
an essential part of our being, as the spiritual — and 
is no less acceptable to God, and consistent with the 
purest virtue, when the actions which it prompts, and 
the dispositions which grow out of it, are kept within 
their proper limits, and made to subserve the higher 
ends successively disclosed by the spiritual. It em- 
braces all our implanted appetites and affections — -all 
our instincts of self-preservation and self-advancement 
— the propensity so inherent in every one, till checked 
by ulterior considerations, to revel in the pleasures of 
the present moment, and to extract all the advantage 
and all the honour and all the enjoyment possible. 



68 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



from the means and opportunities placed at our dis- 
posal in our passage through the world. On the other 
hand, we discern in the spiritual element of our being 
— the restraining sense of a moral law — the supreme 
authority of conscience — the inextinguishable feeling > 
that we are destined for something beyond the present 
and the actual — and all those higher sentiments which 
are involved in the solemn consciousness of God, en- 
velope us with the awe of his presence, and in the 
grand idea of immortality, indicate the final end of 
all our efforts and aspirations. This spiritual element 
marks our affinity with God. It is the witness of our 
sonship. It is the medium of our intercourse. It is 
the link which unites the human with the divine. One 
system underlies another in the order of spiritual de- 
velopment. The presages of a higher life grow up and 
discover themselves amidst the many chilling and re- 
pressive influences which invest this terrestrial scene, 
as the germs of a coming spring are matured in the 
bosom of the frozen earth, and sometimes put forth a 
solitary blade and a pale flower ere the inclemency of 
winter is past. 

All spiritual existence is of the same quality, pre- 
supposes the same conditions, and is subject to the 
same inherent laws.* Spirit is the active principle 
of the universe ; and activity, if it is to issue in order 
and harmony and not prove self- destructive, must of 
necessity operate within certain fixed limits, which 
constitute its fundamental law. Simple intellect— 
the devisal of expedients and the combining of powers 

* ^vyyevhs irav rb \oyu<hv.—3farc. Anton, iil 4. 1 All minds are 
of one family.' — Channing. 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 



69 



to effect contemplated ends — may exist in infinite 
gradations from the least advanced of the human race 
up to God. But for the control and regulation of 
intellect in all its developments, it is clear that a 
supreme and absolute law must subsist, to bring its 
diversified results into unison— to keep it from disor- 
ganizing the system of things, and producing univer- 
sal chaos. Without further pursuing this abstract 
subject, every thoughtful mind will perceive on reflec- 
tion, that those modes of action or of relation towards 
other beings, which are expressed by the terms recti- 
tude, truthfulness, holiness, love, (if indeed they be 
not all ultimately resolvable into some more compre- 
hensive idea) constitute a law arising out of the na- 
ture of things, immutable and eternal, which is as 
binding on the Sovereign Intellect, as it is on the 
smallest and feeblest minds, to the extent that they 
are conscious of its existence. If we suppose any one 
of these qualities absent, and represent to ourselves 
the effect of its suspension on the course of events ; 
we shall at once understand what is meant by the 
necessity of an ultimate moral law. On this law the 
universe is founded. It is the organic principle which 
presided at the creation of the world. It is the wis- 
dom which ' the Lord possessed in the beginning of 
his way, before his works of old/ (Prov. viii. 22;) 
which 'was present with Him, when He made the 
world, and which knoweth and understandeth ail 
things/ (Wisdom of Solomon, ix. 9, 11.) It is the 
Divine Word or Logos of the Alexandrine theoso- 
phists, which John beheld incarnate in Christ/* as 

* ' O \6yos crapq eyeWro. 



70 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



the perfection of wisdom; and the germ of which, 
implanted in the souls of all men, when it attained a 
certain ripeness, made the most advanced of the 
heathen sages — in the judgment of some early fathers 
— the partakers of an anticipated Christianity.* It is 
the heavenly seed which buried for a time in the far- 
rows of human ignorance and carnality, grows up 
into the harvest of eternal life, and engrafts the soul 
into the divine nature. It is the c true Light, which 
lighteth every man that cometh into the world/ (John 

i. 9 ;) or, as the same idea is expressed by the son of 
Sirach, 6 the wisdom which is with all flesh, according 
to the gift of the Lord, and which he hath given to 
them that love Him/ (Eccles. i. 10.) 

The fundamental, universal distinction, then, of 
spiritual existence is this Logos or moral law, which 
binds and governs the operation of all intellect from 
God to man, and is reflected with increasing clearness 
in the conscience of every progressive soul. To the 
range and development and inherent resources of in- 
tellect, it is impossible to assign any limit. What it 
must be in Deity, as the absolute Being, transcends 
our conception. We compare the Divine mind with 
ours, that we may have something within the grasp 

* The passages in Justin Martyr expressing this sentiment, are well 
known: Apoi. i. 46 (Ot fiera Aoyov jBidoo-aj/res Xptcriayoi slci) and 

ii. 8. According to him, the difference between Christ and others, is 
that between a whole and a part — rov Trdvra Aoyov and cnrtp/jLariKov 
Aoyov fiepos ; — which is identical with the doctrine of John (hi. 34), 
* Grod giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him/ We discern a 
kindred feeling as to the universality of the Aoyos, in the prophet's 
comprehension of Egypt and Assyria in the same blessing with 
Israel. — Isaiali xix. 23-25. 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST, 



71 



of our reason to dwell upon; but the finite cannot 
measure the Infinite ; and did we not ascribe moral 
attributes to God which excite our sympathy, and by 
implying consciousness and will include the idea of 
personality, God would be wholly incomprehensible. 
The Logos bridges over the chasm that separates Him 
from us. The affections of faith and love which it 
involves — faith relying on the tendencies that incite 
us to good, love sympathizing with the beneficent 
harmony that pervades His creation — fill up the vast 
interval, and though still immeasurably distant from 
his absolute perfection, bring us into vital commu- 
nion with Him by holy earnestness of aspiration and 
endeavour. 

From the complete ascendancy of the spiritual over 
the natural element of humanity, subjecting all the 
lower impulses and activities to the supreme authority 
of the moral law, and removing every obstacle to a 
perfect harmony of the human with the Divine will 
— result the earthly perfection of man and his fitness 
for a higher stage of existence. Here we get the true 
point of view for apprehending that peculiar and un- 
definable character which, in the feeling of all Chris- 
tians, belongs to the prophet of Nazareth, and which 
they intend to express, when they speak of his di- 
vinity. It is the entire subordination of the natural 
to the spiritual in his life. It is the interfusion of 
the divine and human in one tranquil and harmo- 
nious flow of being. It is the final conquest over 
self and sense and fear in his soul, that love and 
holiness and joy might take their place. It is the 
manifestation of the Logos in its fulness; — the enjoy- 



72 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

xnexit of the Spirit without measure ; — the fall deve- 
lopment of all the lineaments and proportions of the 
moral nature of man : — so that for once humanity 
might behold all its spiritual relations perfectly sus- 
tained, and have a momentary glimpse of the blessed 
union that is possible between a pure mind and God. 
But this divinity grew out of the human elements 
that were at its base, and that alone make it intelligi- 
ble and instructive to us. It was the perfection of 
humanity, as such perfection is conceivable within the 
limits and conditions of this introductory existence. 
It was the perfection of one intended to show us, how 
man must pass from earth to heaven, and may be for 
ever united with God. Christ underwent all our trials, 
temptations, sufferings, fears. Evil approached; he 
felt its power, or he could not have been man : but it 
was repelled before it touched the inner sanctuary of 
the soul. Its dark images glanced for an instant 
over the mirror of conscience, but left its surface un- 
stained. It was the discipline of a living virtue. It 
tested the strength and purity of the spiritual within 
him, and gave him new courage to rely on its future 
support. When he drew to the close of his mortal 
career, and looked back on the task of duty which 
had been entrusted to him — he could say — in the full 
consciousness, that the spiritual had achieved its vic- 
tory over the natural — what no other member of God's 
human family has ever yet said— € it is finished.'' 

In this sense, the divine and human were harmo- 
nized in Christ. The subject is perplexed by trans- 
cendental questions about the possibility of perfection 
in any being of finite powers. - 1 speak here of a re- 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 73 

lative perfection — such as man is capable of, and can 
conceive. We can imagine a human being, placed 
under given circumstances and possessed of certain 
endowments, fully acting up to all the moral require- 
ments of his position, showing that the power of the 
Logos penetrated his whole soul — and living in un- 
broken harmony with the higher relations of the spi- 
ritual world. Such a perfection, we believe, was exhi- 
bited by Christ — and by Christ alone. We look on 
him as the realization of a human ideal. He stands 
immeasurably in advance of the moral attainments of 
the world. We need such an example to incite our 
aspirations and shape our endeavours. On the verge 
of that other life, he illuminates the path by which 
we must reach it through this. He marks the myste- 
rious passage from time into eternity ; shows us, what 
we must look for, and how we must prepare : and 
then, casting off the habiliments of mortality, vanishes 
in that light where God is all in all. Christ, as the 
incarnate Logos, was the consummation of moral ex- 
cellence, so far as that is compatible with the unalter- 
able conditions of humanity. Learning and science 
and artistic skill are not embraced in the attributes 
of the Logos. In these respects, Christ was a man of 
his own age and nation — believing and speaking on all 
speculative topics — on every subject that stood out- 
side the conscience and its 'eternal relations with God 
— like the multitude among whom he dwelt. Through 
this inevitable limitation of his intellectual being, he 
acted with more power and effect on the spiritual con- 
dition of his contemporaries; and from the marked 
contrast between the grandeur and purity of his reli- 



74 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS 'OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

gion and the simplicity of his worldly wisdom, he has 
acquired a more than earthly influence over the mind 
of ensuing generations. The unrivalled pre-eminence 
of his spiritual example we eannot now deprive of its 
claim to a higher reverence, by imputing it to extra- 
ordinary philosophic culture or the perceptions of an 
intellect raised far above the standard of his time. 

For his authority as a prophet, it was necessary, 
that Christ should have lived among us as a brother, 
in the bosom of our human sorrows and joys ; it was 
necessary also, to raise us above our earthly life, that 
he should wear our nature without contracting impu- 
rity — gentle and sinless as some celestial visitant — in 
uninterrupted communion with God. This perfect 
unison of the natural and the spiritual — such a con- 
trast to the ordinary condition of the human soul — - 
was discerned from the first with a mingled reverence 
and love, by all who contemplated his character : but 
the proper value and due relation of the two ele- 
ments were soon misunderstood; and controversies 
thence arose which have ever since distracted the 
Church. Natural and spiritual were interpreted as 
human and divine : human and divine were next 
translated into man and God : and then the question 
came, how natures of such immeasurable disparity 
could co-exist in one person. To res^pre harmony 
where all seemed incurable discord, this expedient 
was resorted to : one element was exalted almost to 
the annihilation of the other. An extreme section of 
Alexandrine theologians made Christ all God, and in 
their excess of mysticism, dissolved his humanity into 
a name. Some divines more exclusively intellectual 



THE DITIXE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 75 



reduced him to a mere man^ into whose mind certain 
dogmas had been specially injected, that he might be- 
come the head of a new religious school, but whose 
intimate union with God, beyond the needs of that 
particular function, they did not admit. In this view, 
the peculiar beauty of Christ's character, as executing 
its Messianic function in a succession of moral con- 
quests through entire sympathy with the Divine Spirit, 
is wholly lost ; for it withholds from him that general, 
constant, all-pervading intercourse with God, which 
alone fulfils our idea of the highest prophet of hu- 
manity, and justifies the assertion of that oneness with 
God, so distinctly claimed for him by Scripture. The 
Catholic Church, true to its maxim of suppressing 
heresy by combining contradictions, put an end to the 
controversy by its authoritative promulgation of the 
doctrine of two natures, one finite, the other infinite, 
and each perfect, in one person. To express this as- 
tounding doctrine, it created the strange term, God- 
man. The union of natural and spiritual elements 
which in Christ's life so beautifully realizes the highest 
conditions of man's terrestrial existence — was thus 
turned by the perverseness of theological subtilty, into 
an absurdity. Perfect God must mean the whole of 

* This view of Christ's nature was expressed by the term »fiAby 
&v9pomos. Some parties holding the doctrine and distinguished for 
their deyotion to human science, had a separate church in Rome at 
the beginning of the third century. They were called, from their 
principal teachers, Theodotians or Artemonites, and were simple 
Humanitarians. They declared, that their opinions were those of 
the Apostles, and had eyer been regarded as such, till the time of 
Victor, Bishop of Home, a.d. 185. An account of them is giyen bv 
Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., y. 28. 

E 2 



78 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

God and nothing but God ; perfect inan, the entire 
man and only man. The two natures are completely 
distinct. The attributes which constitute the essence 
of the one— eternity, infinity, absolute knowledge and 
absolute power — exclude their opposites which enter 
into the definition of the other. If person mean — as, 
to be intelligible, it must — the possession of one con- 
sciousness and one will, it is evident, that natures so 
immeasurably distant, so irreconcilably unlike, as God 
and man, cannot have a common subsistence in one 
person. 

Let us turn from the Church to the Gospel — from 
the nicely-poised determinations of Leo* to the broad 
and simple statements of the Evangelists — and be 
content to accept the facts, so accordant with the 
inner witness of our own being, which they distinctly 
hold up to our view. The beautiful narrative from 
which our text is taken, strikingly exhibits the ope- 
ration of the two elements which I have described, in 
the mind of our Lord. We see him wrestling with 
distrust and fear — striving after, and at length se- 
curing, a divine peace. So viewed, this passage of his 
life becomes a lesson full of comfort and of joy for 
us. The terrible trial was at hand. His prophetic 
eye discerned the ghastly forms of woe, as they came 
thickening on him through the night : and for the 
moment his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto 
death. He had not one near, on whom he could rely. 

* The letter of Pope Leo I. to the patriarch Flavian, settled the 
doctrine of the two natures, and placed it in that inappreciable 
centre between divergent heresies, where it was ultimately fixed by 
the decision of the Council of Chalcedon, a.d. 451. 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IX CHRIST. 



A sense of desolation and loneliness came over him. 
His companions were wearied and asleep ; and he 
withdrew from them, to seek counsel and solace with 
the one unfailing Friend. He felt a weight on his 
soul. He knew what a duty God had cast on him, 
and anticipated the great issues that were depending 
on its faithful execution. Its magnitude enhanced 
his fears, and made him doubt himself. He was 
troubled also by the weakness and irresolution and 
childish unpreparedness of those whose thoughts he 
had tried to raise to the height of his own great 
cause, and to inspire with courage and self-possession 
proportionate to the coming danger and trial. It 
was the hour of his enemies. The power of darkness 
was upon him. His highest faith was momentarily 
eclipsed. Presence of mind, strength of purpose, ca- 
pacity of endurance — all seemed to be giving way. 
Nothing remained, but to throw himself on God — for 
human weakness to lay hold of the divine strength. 
Humility and devout submission were the virtues that 
now culminated in his soul. They checked all rash- 
ness ; they beat down all presumption ; they broke 
forth in that one deep and earnest prayer — i Father, 
if thou be willing, remove this cup from me ; never- 
theless not my will, but thine be done/ In that 
breathing of profound and self-renouncing humility — 
in that entire reference of all things to God — went 
forth the word that brought back strength to the 
failing spirit. Sad and solemn rose its accents to 
heaven on the stillness of the midnight air — with 
ever- deepening fervour as the sense of weakness and 
peril grew; — till God's presence was fully realized, 



78 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 



and a helping angel stood at his side; and then all 
was calm — and the terror passed away. And so it is 
ever with man, when the highest duties test his alle- 
giance, and perils at which the stoutest quake, are 
a condition of their performance. There is a fearful 
struggle within, that bewilders the brain and makes 
the heart sick; till the will is firmly fixed, and the 
final resolve is taken, and God is trusted and obeyed 
with implicit faith. Then strength enters the soul, 
and the Spirit conquers. This is that victory of faith 
c which overcometh the world. ; 

Rarely is this highest of victories achieved without 
terrible accompaniments even of bodily exhaustion 
and pain. The flesh sympathizes with the struggles 
of its nobler companion. Sweat and blood attest the 
inward agony. The immortal overpowers the perish- 
able, The ethereal spark is too quick and strong for 
its earthly vehicle, which melts and wastes away before 
its consuming energy. Yea, our very infirmities bear 
witness to the might of the spirit, which tramples on 
the body, and subjugates it to its will, and asserts its 
own kindred with the eternal and divine. When the 
agony has been undergone, and the conflict is past — 
sweet indeed is the final peace. It is the peace of 
conscious strength, reposing after victory, and calmly 
awaiting the certain issue of God's merciful provi- 
dence. Then comes the assurance of faith and prin- 
ciple — the steadfast resolve — the hand prepared for 
every good and noble work— the soothed and trusting 
spirit that shrinks no more at the aspect of danger, 
but looks out on all things with an eye of quiet and 
hopeful love. Then the martyr-soul goes back from 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 79 

the solitude of prayer and faces the world anew, filled 
with a holier vigilance and tenderer solicitude for those 
who are yet weak and timorous and dull; and when 
it finds them ' sleeping for sorrow/ it puts words of 
warning in their ear, and cries — c Why sleep ye ? 
rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation/ Then 
—whatever may yet remain of pain and grief and 
peril for its further trial, it can meet it all without 
dismay. With spiritual insight it discerns in these 
things, the orderings of that invisible hand which it 
rejoices to own and obey — the transitory process of 
earthly discipline, which is still needed to draw out 
its strength and complete its purification — a renewed 
chastening of yet unvanquished passions and infir- 
mities, that it may enter with enlarged capacities 
of action and enjoyment on its immortal heritage* 
Though earlier associates in the work of God should 
forsake it and relapse into the world, it is disquieted 
no more. Its human sympathies are with them still, 
and its prayers go up for them in love to heaven. 
From all disappointments and sorrows it has a refuge 
in God. A holy tranquillity possesses it. In deser- 
tion and solitude it is sustained by the thought — i I 
am not alone, for the Father is with me. ; 

Such is the significance of the scene in Gethse- 
mane. It exhibits the highest form of humanity 
sustaining the heaviest load of woe, and displays the 
strength and peace that result from the triumph of 
the spiritual over the natural man. Who can look 
back on this scene without an increase of love and 
reverence and trust? Who can behold in Christ 
such a beautiful harmony of the human and divine. 



80 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

without feeling it a glory to partake of a nature like 
his, and acknowledging with, a deeper gratitude and 
more solemn awe the inspirations of the Parent Spirit 
which are the source of all that is good in him and 
us ? If we substitute for this view, the orthodox 
theory of his nature and of the conflicts it underwent 
in the closing scenes of his life — we meet with nothing 
that is in harmony with our human consciousness, 
or expresses the universal and enduring relations of 
man and God. A single, unparalleled prodigy is 
offered us instead,, which may work on the imagi- 
nation, but finds no response in the interior sense of 
our moral being. To estimate even the divine, we 
must rise out of the bosom of our familiar humani- 
ties. Our native feeling of moral fitness has been 
deadened by the artificial treatment of theology. 
Were deep-fixed associations removed, which have 
been engrained in our minds by the . systematic teach- 
ing of centuries — no parent could look with approval 
on a history which sets before us the agony of a 
guiltless child, bearing the weight of others* sins to 
satisfy the inexorable demands of a Father* s wrath. 
We should rather think of Christ, as wearing our 
nature, not as a penal robe, but in proof of its native 
excellence and destined glory — to make us partakers 
of his own divine spirit— to lead us on through life's 
trials and difficulties— and introduce us into the 
happier scenes of our Father's courts above. 

We need increased sympathy with the spirit of 
Christ. We require to be constantly roused by his 
warning voice. Too often we lie oppressed and drowsy 
on the ground of duty, when danger is near and 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IX CHRIST. 81 

unsuspected temptation is stealing upon us. We 
resign ourselves to a world of dreams, and let great 
opportunities go by ; and when principle demands 
resistance and self-sacrifice, we betake ourselves to 
ignominious flight. We too easily persuade our- 
selves, that life is a pleasant and easy task. It is an 
awful mistake. Is Heaven so slight a boon, that we 
can leisurely walk up to it and appropriate it, in a life 
of comfortable sloth and self-indulgence? Virtue, 
it is true, carries its own recompense along with it ; 
but it must grow out of labour and self- discipline, 
When these have become a second nature, and brought 
the natural and spiritual into perfect harmony, then, . 
and not till then, do they surround our being with a 
perpetual bliss. In the most favoured of outward 
conditions and with the happiest native temperament, 
life's great purpose cannot be accomplished without 
the strenuous exertion of all our faculties — without 
constant vigilance, and perpetual sacrifice of personal 
inclination, and unceasing resistance to evil without 
and within. The best men are they who have made 
the greatest efforts for truth and right, and drawn 
wisdom out of the sorest trials. Our nature will not 
bear a softer treatment in this life. Unbroken ease 
with exemption from disappointment and trial, and 
immediate command of all the sources of enjoyment 
— relaxes the springs of virtuous activity, nourishes 
the taint of selfishness, and makes life a tasteless ex- 
perience. The soul is nursed for heaven by the dis- 
cipline of a sacred sorrow. The look that is fixed on 
immortality, wears not a perpetual smile ; and eyes 
through which shine the light of other worlds, are 

e 3 



82 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

often dimmed with tears. And yet when the coun- 
tenance is earnest and sad, unutterably blessed — not 
to be bartered for any earthly good — may be the 
peace within. What could we take in exchange for 
pure and noble principles — for faith unfailing — for 
love unquenchable — for that spirit of prayer which 
goes up unceasing to the Father, and brings down 
his silent blessing on the heart ? Child of affliction, 
bewail not thy lot. Seek out the wisdom that is 
hidden in it. Pursue with firm step and steadfast 
aim, the immortal issue to which it leads. Cherish 
the peace thou wilt ever find in a pure and loving 
heart. Thy Master was a man of sorrows and ac- 
quainted with grief, yet the peace of God filled his 
spirit in the agony of Gethsemane and the death- 
struggle of the Cross. 



83 



VI. 

THE DISTINCTIVE AND PERMANENT IN 
CHRISTIANITY. 

Hebeews xiii. 8. 
"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." 

It has been the practice of apologists to separate 
Christianity by as marked a distinction as possible, 
from every other form of Religion, and to represent 
it as a fact sui generis in the order of Providence :— 
the stupendous efficacy imputed to it, and the start- 
ling array of prophecy and miracle alleged on its 
behalf, seeming equally to sustain its extraordinary 
character, and by their very contrariety to the natural 
course of things to give it an overwhelming claim on 
the reverence and submission of mankind. This po- 
sition, however, it has been found impossible to main- 
tain in its original integrity, against the invincible 
remonstrances of reason and the ceaseless advance of 
science. Each generation has witnessed, with the dif- 
fusion of knowledge, a constant subdual of tone in 
the champions of revealed religion ; and capitulation 
is now sometimes talked of, where uncompromising 
defiance was once hurled back on the hostilities of 
the secular intelligence. On the other hand, in the 
same degree that Christianity is made more human 



84 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



and more natural, brought more within the limits of 
tie universal agencies of Providence, and reduced to 
the level of our ordinary sympathies and apprehen- 
sions — it appears to lose the distinctive character 
•which should signalize it as a direct communication 
from God, and simply to fill its place as one among 
many provisions equally divine for the moral and 
spiritual culture of our race. We seem thus caught 
within the horns of a dilemma. If we assume the old 
ground and insist on peculiarity, — if we assert that 
Christianity is a fact apart from all other facts, hav- 
ing an origin, a doctrine, and a warrant exclusively its 
own — we put ourselves in 'opposition to the general 
reason and conscience of mankind, and as the spirit 
of self-reliance spreads and larger views of the Uni- 
verse begin to prevail, we must expect to see an ever- 
increasing number of thoughtful and serious men 
abandon our cause and join the ranks of unbelief. If 
again we regard the ivhole of Providence as an equal 
manifestation of Deity — if we look on Christ's minis- 
try, not as the introduction of a new and special 
mode of human treatment, but merely as an element 
of more than ordinary moral influence embraced, con- 
templated, and provided for in the general system of 
the world — we deny the power of revelation to pro- 
claim a new law to our spiritual being, and seem 
bound in consistency to abandon much of the language 
that is popularly used respecting it. 

This is a question of great interest, deeply inter- 
woven with the difficulties which at the present time 
perplex many a devout and earnest mind. — Let us 
turn our attention to it, and see what light can be 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 



85 



thrown on it. — The ultimate test and assurance of 
Christianity, as of every other doctrine that is offered 
to the acceptance of mankind, must be found in its 
agreement with the universal and irreversible laws of 
our mental and moral being. — Our own nature is the 
first and nearest of all realities — the corner-stone of 
the entire fabric of truth. It is a prior authority to 
any communication that can be brought to us from 
without. If it be so weak or so corrupt that no trust 
can be reposed in its instinctive beliefs and inevitable 
conclusions, it cannot judge of the trustworthiness of 
statements made to it by others. — By the supposition 
it is incapable of distinguishing between truth and 
falsehood • and the argument that would infer the in- 
dispensableness of divine revelation from the assumed 
impotency of human reason, is self-destructive. If it 
be affirmed, that man's nature is miraculously changed 
by faith ; who is to decide on the reality of the mi- 
racle? The assurance can at least belong only to 
those who are the subjects of it. By the fact of their 
change, they are insulated from the general mass of 
human nature. The unchanged remain in their pre- 
vious state of helpless incapacity. No effect can be 
produced on them by the experience- of others : and a 
process of which they have no conception, they will 
be quite as likely to ascribe to delusion as to miracle. 

In what sense, then, do we assert, that Religion is 
natural to man, and has its origin and warrant in the 
primary laws of his being ? We must distinguish here 
between those spontaneous tendencies which grow out 
of our original constitution, and necessarily deter- 
mine our ideas to associate themselves in a particular 



86 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



order and issue in a particular result, and those infer- 
ences which the logical faculty derives from the facts 
collected by experience and generalized by the laws 
of association just described. — Religion is at first a 
spontaneous feeling in man's mind; only at a later 
period is it aided in its development by the auxiliary 
operations of reason. It is not contended, that the 
new-born babe brings with it into the world, the ideas 
of a God, a moral government and a future life — as 
they exist in the mature mind of an intelligent and 
well-informed Christian ; but simply that it possesses 
in the rudiments of its mental organization, a seed and 
a radicle of spiritual growth, which, exposed to the 
needful stimulus of outward impression, shoots up and 
blossoms and fructifies through an inherent necessity, 
into more or less perfect forms of moral and religious 
belief. The point to be insisted on is the inwardness 
of spiritual conviction — that it does not depend for 
its existence on the accident of external instruction, 
nor owe its certainty to the conclusiveness of any in- 
ferences deducible from facts that fall under the cog- 
nizance of sense. Three grand principles of belief, 
which lie at the foundation of our rational being, 
arise in this manner out of the internal and organic 
working of the mind — the recognition of a Supreme 
Intelligence in all things— reverence for the moral 
law mirrored in the human conscience, as an expres- 
sion of his Will — and the expectation of some future 
state where the realities of man's condition will be 
more in accordance with the ideal after which he is 
formed to aspire. These principles in their origin are 
little more than the material for belief — dim yearn- 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY, 



87 



ings and vague apprehensions which are drawn out 
and fashioned by the understanding according to the 
extent and character of its own development, and 
finally cast into permanent formulas, as a standard 
for the popular religion, by the plastic agency of some 
powerful mind. — It is evident, that reason would have 
nothing whereon to act, if certain indisputable data 
were not included in the primary intuitions of con- 
sciousness. There must be a limit somewhere. "We 
must come to assumptions at last. If we cannot trust, 
and will not accept, the spontaneous and universal 
suggestions of our own nature — even when fruitful of 
consequences that are in harmony with experience 
and reasoning — nothing remains for us but self-sur- 
render to hopeless scepticism. 

It is important to notice in this connection the dif- 
ferent functions of the prophet and the philosopher — - 
two characters, that have exerted a powerful inference 
on the actions and opinions of mankind. — The prophet 
deals with the primary intuition ; the philosopher, with 
the secondary generalization and remoter inference.— 
The prophet gives the incentives to action ; the philo- 
sopher supplies matter for reflection. — One recurs to 
the heart and the conscience as his medium of in- 
fluence ; the other addresses himself to pure intellect. 
The prophet operates on masses of men, and fills them 
with a new life, and sends up from them a wide, per- 
vading influence — an exhalation, as it were, from the 
popular heart — which silently penetrates the whole 
length and breadth of Society. The philosopher 
speaks a higher language, intelligible only to the se- 
lect and initiated few : he has his favourite modes of 



88 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

expression and peculiar processes of thought which 
wear an irreligious aspect in the eyes of the multi- 
tude^ and inspire them with superstitious aversion ; 
and he must trust to the changes of future years, for 
transmitting any portion of the light which he has 
struck out, into the dense shades of error and preju- 
dice which are spread over immense spaces in the 
realms of mind. — Yet these two characters, placed as 
they are at the opposite extremes of Society, main- 
tain an unbroken and mysterious communication with 
each other, and reciprocally furnish the conditions of 
their safe and healthful action on the excitable atmo- 
sphere of humanity. — The prophet brings out and 
cherishes its moral elements — its living sense of God 
and duty and immortality — and delivers to his distant 
co-operator the broad, unquestionable facts of human 
consciousness, which he needs as a sure basis for his 
speculations. The philosopher, on the other side, 
cautiously accepting the material transmitted to him, 
explores it with the keen edge of his analysis, and 
pares off from the vital substance of truth the impure 
accretions which it has contracted in the grosser at- 
mosphere of the popular belief, and which must check 
its growth and expansion when placed in the thin 
pure air of a higher region. — And so they work into 
each other's hands : — the prophet mightily active be- 
low in the broad dark depths of the world, amidst the 
strong instinctive impulses — the sorrows, weaknesses, 
and sins — of ordinary men ; the philosopher serenely 
contemplative on the solitary illuminated peak which 
towers into the skies, with a few gifted spirits at his 
side and his eye ranging over a vast horizon — trans- 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 89 

mitting at intervals some higher intelligence to the 
toiling multitudes that are spread over the vast plains 
at his feet. Their work, however, is progressive : they 
will not always be at the same distance from each 
other.— From opposite sides their operations slowly 
approximate, and tend towards future union in a com- 
mon fieLl, — where facts attested by the universal con- 
sciousness which no scepticism can deny, will be finally 
accepted by the experienced and disciplined intellect, 
and wrought out into conclusions which the most fas- 
tidious philosophy will be glad to admit. Then at 
length the nuptials of faith and reason, so long de- 
sired and so long deferred, will be celebrated amid the 
jubilees of a reconciled and rejoicing creation. 

The subject leads us to speak now of the prophetic 
character. Christianity is a manifestation and a re- 
sult of the prophetic spirit. — It is the distinction of 
the prophet, not only to possess the primary religious 
intuitions in peculiar vividness and intensity, but to 
have the power of quickening them into new life in 
other minds, and of irradiating with their influence all 
his representations of man's duties and destiny. This 
prophetic faculty is a gift from God — an effect of that 
closer intimacy which some minds are permitted to 
hold with the Sovereign Spirit. In no other light can 
we regard it. — It is an endowment original and inex- 
plicable — not to be attained by study or thoughtful- 
ness or the treasures of Science. * The spirit bloweth 
where it listeth, and thou canst not tell whence it 
cometh, or whither it goeth/ — It may have been— 
there is strong historical testimony, that it was — in 
the earlier ages of the world, accompanied by outward 



90 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

signs and wonders. These however are not necessary 
adjuncts to its existence. It may exhibit its genuine 
power and operation without them. Specifically call- 
ing into exercise only one element in the manifold 
nature of man, it would be unreasonable to expect of 
the prophetic gift, that it should in the same measure 
fill the intellect with scientific light. Its office is 
simply to give a right moral impulse to the intellect, 
and throw it into the direction in which it ought to 
work. Unavoidably, therefore, in remoter periods, 
all prophetic manifestations, whether in the shape of 
doctrine, ritual, or institution — though ever possessing 
at bottom some elements of primary truth — have 
blended themselves with the error and ignorance of 
the times, and shot up into divers forms of supersti- 
tion. — Hence a need for the later operations of rea- 
son, to separate the true from the false — to retain the 
divine, and cast away the purely human. Reason has 
not, however, always recognized the proper limits of 
its task, but occasionally carried the work of destruc- 
tion into the very substance of truth itself. — In the 
infancy of the world, when reason was weak and 
knowledge very limited, and men, like children, were 
thrown more on the instincts of their nature — the 
prophetic faculty must have been far more widely ex- 
ercised than the zealous advocates of particular re- 
velations are willing to admit, in disseminating the 
elements of moral and spiritual culture, and building 
up from its foundations the great fabric of society. — 
Surveyed in this broader view, we may regard the 
Mosaic and Christian dispensations as pre-eminent ex- 
amples of a general type of phenomena — the purest 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 



91 



and most powerful manifestations of a spirit that is co- 
extensive in some degree with humanity itself, mak- 
ing man ; wherever j he exists, essentially a religions 
being, capable of sympathy and intercourse with the 
Omnipresent Mind. 

It remains to be shown — what there is distinctive 
in Christianity ; why it has claims on our trust and 
reverence above other religions; how it stands out 
from the universal religious principle with a character 
of its own ; how it calls forth and realizes to the in- 
dividual consciousness, at once in the greatest purity 
and with a surpassing power, those primary intui- 
tions of a living God — a divine law — and a future 
retributory existence — which are the essence of all 
religion. The foundations of Christianity were laid 
broad and deep in the doctrines of Hebrew prophecy : 
— that there was only one God, the universal Spirit ; 
— that He sustained a close personal relation, as moral 
governor, to those whom He had constituted his peo- 
ple; — that the distinction between them and other 
nations was temporary ; — and that in the corning 
kingdom of God — that grand theme of prophetic 
promise and encouragement — the converted Gentiles 
would be united with the worshipers of Jehovah in 
one blessed and glorious society, Out of these rudi- 
ments Jesus and his followers expanded a religion for 
the world. The national God of the Jews became the 
Father of mankind. The narrow peculiarity of a fa- 
voured race was enlarged into the brotherhood of all 
men. For the promise of earthly prosperity, gross 
and perishable, was substituted the more glorious pro- 
spect of an endless life in heaven. All these doctrines, 



92 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



it is true, were set forth originally from the Jewish 
point of view, and adjusted to the Jewish belief and 
capacity of that first age. They could not else have 
come into contact with humanity or exerted on it any 
living power. But under this outward form was 
transmitted a vital principle, capable of growth and 
self-development, which Providence by manifold ex- 
citements and under guiding influences, has drawn 
out age after age into successive results of practical 
and doctrinal wisdom for the nourishment of the 
soul. Through every phasis of manifestation the 
fundamental truths have subsisted in their essential 
strength for all who earnestly sought them. 

What, then, was the actual process of the great 
change now wrought in society ? The preaching of a 
crucified man ; — sympathy with a loving, sinless, self- 
sacrificing life ; faith in a perfect virtue, victorious over 
death, crowned with glory in heaven, manifesting the 
presence and the power of the heavenly Father amidst 
the sin and suffering of the world. And what has 
been the permanent result ? A communion of minds 
subsisting under many outward forms, but still held 
together, amid great diversity of usage and opinion, 
by the closest spiritual ties — the same high trust in 
God, the same clinging of the heart to Christ, the 
same earnest endeavour to sanctify life's trials and 
duties, by making them a discipline of the immortal 
soul for heaven. Such is the Church of Christ. It is 
a communion of good and earnest men who are drawn 
to God in Christ' s spirit and by the attraction of 
Christ's life. Experience shows, that there is strong 
need of a Church— of a community of religious ex- 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 



93 



ercises and influences — for the moral and spiritual 
culture of man's nature. It is a significant fact, that 
no civilized people ever yet existed without a public 
worship representative of the general faith. Our pious 
affections, our incentives to virtuous action^ our hope, 
our trust, our love — are all cherished and strengthened 
by religions sympathy and religious intercourse. A 
Church is the embodiment in outward forms and joint 
devotions of our common religion. But a religion 
for the many cannot be furnished by an abstract ex- 
hibition of moral and religious truth. It must have 
its root in actual history ; it must pass into some con- 
crete reality, as a bond of permanent association — 
the fixed centre of human sympathies and a definite 
object of human reverence and love. It needs a visi- 
ble authorship and head, to invest it with a distinctive 
character — to make it the consecration of our retro- 
spect of the past — to wrap it in the rich and ample 
folds of hallowed remembrance and venerable associa- 
tion — and hand it down from age to age, the best 
inheritance of fathers to their children. 

Mere science is incapable of such influences. No 
man reverences grammar or geometry as a tradition. 
Science is to each individual essentially a creation of 
the present. But history and memory enter into all 
our conceptions of a Church, and are indispensable 
to its specific effect on the human heart. In the pe- 
culiar character, therefore, of a Church's power over 
the mind, we discover the source of many noble, 
tender, and delightful emotions : — emotions, however, 
which, for the very reason that they are so deeply hu- 
man, require to be carefully watched, lest they should 



94 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

engender the seeds of superstitious formalism and 
priestly domination. Observe, then, how beautifully 
Christianity in its genuine simplicity has provided for 
the want and guarded against the perversion. In 
the first place, it has nowhere expressly constituted a 
Church, but left such a result to the free spontaneous 
growth of its own creative spirit. Our religion, more- 
over, though issuing from a divine source, comes to 
us through a human channel — through the medium 
of a brother man, true to conscience, faithful in duty, 
perfected by suffering, exalted to heaven. Our bond 
of Christian union lies not in outward ceremonial and 
metaphysical dogma, but in the holiest and loftiest 
of all sentiments — in the love and reverence of virtue 
itself — in owning God our Father, under the most 
benignant of his manifestations — as He reveals Him- 
self in the moral excellence of a pure and exalted 
human soul. While we cleave to the genuine spirit of 
our religion, the most fervent devotion cannot pass 
into superstition, but will only incite us to stronger 
efforts after new holiness. In the love of Christ, faith 
and duty are one principle. Religious feeling reposes 
in peace on him ; and the religious life pervaded by 
his spirit, aspires through him to be one in aim and 
effort with the sovereign will of God. 

Christianity so understood combines in it all the 
conditions of a religion for mankind. It is historical, 
and yet has a power of endless adaptation to the spi- 
ritual necessities of man's soul. It holds out a defi- 
nite object for the affections, and yet fixes no limit to 
the expansion of the sympathies and the freest exer- 
cise of the intellectual powers. It is profoundly de- 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY, 



95 



votional, and at the same time severely but humanely 
moral. Here at length Religion and Morality, so 
often kept wide asunder in the old sacerdotal systems, 
seem to have found their point of coalescence and to 
mingle in undistinguishable identity. In speaking of 
Christianity, I mean, of course, not the letter of its 
historical records, but the spirit of Christ's own life 
— not the particular words he uttered, or the particu- 
lar acts he performed, in the presence of that old 
Jewish civilization of Galilee and Jerusalem, but the 
intense consciousness of God and duty and eternal 
life which impregnated his whole being, and infused 
through his contagious influence a new soul into hu- 
manity. That living spirit of Christ we may imbibe 
by sympathy, and transfer to other scenes, and con- 
vert into the animating principle of very different 
duties. That spirit, however disguised by the mysti- 
fication of jarring phrases, will meet a response and a 
welcome from every pure and earnest nature : and in 
that spirit every existing indication conspires to as- 
sure us, that the elements of a religion for mankind 
can alone be found. But then we must not divorce 
the Religion from the history which gives it substance 
and reality. We must not evaporate the concrete 
into the abstract. Religion exerts its influence not in 
ideas alone, but in the facts which are their visible 
counterpart — in the belief, that there was once a real 
Christ on earth — the perfection of human goodness — 
who taught and toiled and suffered and died, and 
then went to heaven in the spirit and power of God — 
that omnipresent Father, in whose name he spoke, 
and who encompasses us now, as He encompassed 



96 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



Jesus then, with, the living tokens of his love. If we 
dissolve this spiritual communion with Christ, how 
shall we again gather together in one the scattered 
individualities of men's souls ? Where shall we again 
find a head, a centre, a point of universal sympathy ? 
Unrestrained by any combining influence, speculation 
will start off in a thousand divergent directions, on its 
headlong, wilful career. Hard intellects will engage 
in unprofitable gladiatorship ; and the competitors for 
a mastery over human spirits, will divide the world 
into innumerable sections of antagonistic opinion. 
Such an anticipation is no mere suggestion of arbi- 
trary fancy ; and it furnishes a strong argument for 
the preservation of Christianity. We acquire a new 
perception of its truth, and of its necessity in the 
order of Providence, from representing to ourselves 
the consequences of its annihilation. 

I must add a few words, in conclusion, on the spe- 
cific authority of Christ. We have seen, that Religion 
has its proper seat in the primary intuitions of con- 
sciousness, and that it is the function of the prophet, 
to call forth those intuitions into more vivid opera- 
tion. The prophet does not convince us by strength 
of reasoning. We do not yield up our assent to his 
arguments, and measure it out by our sense of their 
weakness or their force ; but he commands our whole 
being at once by a resistless appeal to principles 
within. He carries our inmost sympathies along with 
him, by the self-evidencing power of his doctrine, by 
the sanctity of his life, by the serene majesty of his 
spirit, by the intense conviction that lives and breathes 
in his words. It mav be Questioned, whether the 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 97 

very ablest exhibition of what are called the Evi- 
dences of Christianity, ever made a person really feel 
the true authority of Christ. But take up the simple 
memorials of his life, when your mind is in a tender 
and serious mood — and in imagination open your ears 
to the calm, majestic accents of his voice, as he de- 
livers one of his beautiful parables, or rebukes the 
self-complacent Pharisee, or speaks peace to the re- 
pentant sinner — or go with him into the chamber of 
death, when he bids the sleeping damsel arise, and 
gives her back to the arms of the heart-stricken pa- 
rent, and tells him Death is but a sleep— or suppose 
yourself at the last Supper, when he is distributing 
the bread and the cup, and uttering his words of 
parting counsel and benediction — and let these hal- 
lowed influences fall gently on a simple, childlike, 
confiding heart : — you will then feel what his authority 
is, and you will bow your soul before it, as a power 
from Heaven. You will feel that it is the power 
which goodness and truth and the consciousness of 
a divine presence must ever exert. It is the power 
which religious virtue always exerts to the extent that 
it is earnest and real, and which in Christ was so 
mighty to convert and to save, because in him virtue 
has no human parallel. In taking this view of the 
authority of Christ, we need not contend for any 
transcendental doctrine of absolute immaculateness 
from the birth. Christ's was a genuine, itatural vir- 
tue ; in making it unhuman, we only make it unreal. 
It is sufficient for the practical Christian, without 
plunging into the unfathomable metaphysics of the- 
ology — to feel that such virtue is far, far above his 



98 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



own, and yet what he himself must daily aspire after, 
if he would become a better and happier man. 

When Christ took leave of his followers, he pro- 
mised the Spirit to fill his vacant place, as their fu- 
ture Comforter and Guide : and that Spirit still abides 
with, the true members of his universal Church. 
Scripture is the vehicle which conveys it to us, and 
through which it is dispensed and applied to every 
believing heart. But the true Church — the Church 
of mankind — cannot be nourished from a book alone, 
however beautiful and however wise. It demands a 
living ministry — the living influence of speech and act. 
It needs faithful, earnest, simple-hearted and devoted 
men — unfettered by creeds, unenslaved by forms, un- 
awed by hierarchies — imbibing the spirit of Christ 
into their deepest souls, and left free to impart it in 
their own way, according to their own convictions, in 
words of power and genuine sincerity. O may such 
men speedily arise for the guidance and blessing of 
their race — strong in faith, strong in love, strong in 
knowledge and intellectual power — to dispel doubt, 
to chase away indifference, to establish conviction, to 
assert the great cause of humanity and God, and to 
bind up in the enduring ties of a brotherly affection 
the broken peace and wasted energies of the Church 
of Christ ! Through their lips may the Comforter go 
forth with new power among men, and guide thou- 
sands of troubled and doubting spirits to the truth 
which they seek but cannot find ! And we — who en- 
dure the hour of darkness and strife, and dimly dis- 
cern the breaking of a brighter morn, and faintly 
herald its approach, — O grant that we, Thou God 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 99 

of mercy and of truth, feeble as we are, may be 
true to our convictions and earnest according to our 
strength, that when our summons comes, we may lay 
down our charge in the humble trust, that we have 
done what we could, and leave the great issue with 
Thee! 



100 



VII. 

THE FOOTSTEPS OE CHRIST. 
1 Peter ii. 21. 

" Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should 
follow his steps." 

The wonderful life of Christ, with its vast transform- 
ing influence on the moral condition of the world, 
has been viewed in two different lights by those who 
have looked back on it with reverence through the 
lengthening vale of time. They have interpreted it in 
a mystical or in a rational sense. They have beheld 
in it either a descent of God to man, or an elevation 
of man towards God ; and they have adopted exclu- 
sively one or the other of these points of view, with- 
out attempting to reconcile them. In the former 
theory, as conceived by the reputedly orthodox, 
Christ's mediation involves a stupendous and convul- 
sive miracle, which affects the entire spiritual economy 
of the universe, reversing the previous relations of 
Deity to mankind, and restoring the moral balance of 
creation. Christ steps into the place of God. The 
glory of his mediatorial office eclipses the brightness 
of the paternal throne. The divine attributes of his 
character absorb the moral and the human. He is 
too high for our sympathy and our imitation. We 



THE FOOTSTEPS OE CHRIST. 



101 



stand afar off overwhelmed with amazement and awe. 
Reason is confounded ; and human affection is changed 
into religious ecstasy. The rationalist, on the other 
hand, disperses this mythic cloud, and through the 
clear, transparent light of the understanding, discerns 
the definite outline of a human teacher and guide — a 
man, labouring among fellow-men — a gifted sage, sent 
by God on an errand of mercy to the world, to give 
us wise and good precepts and show us by his exam- 
ple the road to Heaven. If this view be less kindling 
to the imagination, it better satisfies the reason and 
more wins the heart. 

Each of these conceptions of the person and work 
of Christ has, however, by natural reaction pushed the 
other into excess. Each has its side of truth, and 
represents a want and tendency of man's soul. For 
we may contemplate our relation to invisible things, 
wholly from the divine or wholly from the human 
point of view ; and each survey will pass into error, 
simply from its exclusiveness — from its denial of the 
restraining influence of its needful counterpart. The 
system which converts Christ into absolute Deity, 
and supposes the whole spiritual world to have been 
revolutionized by his interposition, will not bear the 
scrutiny of an earnest reason, and evaporates into 
empty formulas when the strong light of science and 
history is cast upon it. But then the theory which 
limits Christ's functions and influence to those of a 
mere man— which accepts his words as the simple dic- 
tates of human thoughtfulness and sagacity — which 
measures the wisdom and the rationality of his out- 
ward life by its direct conformity to the standard of 



102 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

our recognized morality — excludes the divine element 
altogether, and does not satisfy the demands of our 
religious nature. In the being whom we follow as our 
spiritual Guide, whom we accept as the source of our 
spiritual life, as the Head of our Church — we natu- 
rally look for the indication of something divine. We 
suppose him to stand nearer to God than ourselves. 
He mediates for us between things divine and human, 
bridging over the abrupt chasm which separates them 
— and opens a new and living way to communion 
with the Father. How the example of such a being 
should influence us, and how we are to follow his 
steps — we must now show, 

It cannot be too often repeated, that the influence 
of a prophet must be distinguished from that of a 
teacher. The teacher labours to persuade by argu- 
ments addressed to the reason. The prophet demands 
submission by an appeal to convictions already within 
the breast, The teacher delivers his principles as 
wrought out by his own study and reflection. The 
prophet proclaims his doctrines as truths which he is 
conscious of receiving direct from God, — He cannot 
indeed convince us of the fact, except by awakening 
a kindred consciousness in ourselves ; and this may, at 
first view, seem to bring down his claims to the level 
of the ordinary teacher, by making our belief the test 
of their validity. — But we can often perceive that to 
be true, and feel that to be right and beautiful, (when 
once proposed to us) by a criterion inherent in our 
own spiritual nature — which we are conscious at the 
same time we could never have originated for our- 
selves, and which even while we accept it on the assu- 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



103 



ranee of this interior sense, we distinctly recognize as 
something divine — something very far exceeding our 
previous and ordinary condition of thought and senti- 
ment. TTe all experience a lower degree of the same 
effect from the finest strokes of the poet and the artist. 
For the influence of the genuine prophet is inspiring 
and even creative.— He does more than impart truth 
from himself. He awakens dormant sympathies and 
calls forth kindred elements to meet and embrace it. 
and incorporate it with the living substance of the 
responsive soul. — And what holds of the prophet's 
doctrine, holds also of his life. For his doctrine and 
his life cannot be separated. His life is his doctrine 
in action. His doctrine is the theory of his life. Both 
command our reverence and our faith — not from their 
coincidence with the conclusions which we have de- 
duced from premises already embraced, but because 
they enlarge the basis of our conception of man's 
duty and destination, give us new and wider premises 
from which to reason — and by their kindling effect 
on the whole spiritual nature, infuse into it a fresher 
power and endue it with clearer insight. In such in- 
fluences we intuitively discern the Spirit of God. 
They are the certain witness of a prophet's presence. 

In considerations like these, we find the proper an- 
swer to objections sometimes urged by men, in whose 
mind the logical element is too largely predominant 
— that they cannot subject their reason to any human 
demands on faith, or write themselves servants of any 
one but God himself; and that the life of Christ is 
placed before us in circumstances so peculiar — so 
deeply coloured by the accidents of his age and coun- 



104 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

try and mission — as to unfit it for becoming an ex- 
ample to men of other times and under different so- 
cial relations. The difficulty springs froin the same 
feeling as respects both the doctrine and the life — and 
admits of the same reply. It does not perceive, that 
the authority to which assent and subjection are de- 
manded, is, by the supposition, divine and not human 
— that interior revelation — that sense of spiritual 
truth — which God's inspiration imparted to the ori- 
ginal organism of the human soul, and which He has 
enabled the prophet, by a larger infusion of it into 
his own mind, to stimulate into greater vigour and 
activity. Whether such coincidence can be discerned 
between what is offered from without and what is felt 
within, as to justify a submission to prophetic autho- 
rity — must be left to the experience of each individual 
conscience. It is a case in which no one can judge 
for another. But the argument assumes, that such 
coincidence is discerned, and that the submission, 
therefore, is yielded not to man but to God. The 
objection, again, does not sufficiently distinguish be- 
tween a particular precept necessarily shaped and ad- 
justed to the occasion which called it forth, and the 
deeper spiritual principle which is at work in it — be- 
tween a particular act, or even a particular course of 
action, modified as it must be by the conditions of 
coexisting circumstance, and the general effort and 
tendency of the whole life out of which it sprang, 
and of which it can only be regarded as a limited and 
imperfect expression. It is with the inner principle 
and general tendency alone, that the intuitions of re- 
ligion and the claims of the prophet have any concern, 



THE FOOTSTEPS OE CHRIST. ±UO 

The adaptation of particular precepts and particular 
acts to the changing exigencies of society, falls within 
the province of the practical reason. This obvious 
distinction, apart from which no religious record of 
the Past can be of any use to ensuing generations — 
has been overlooked through the prevailing belief in 
the verbal inspiration of Scripture, and the conse- 
quent acceptance of Christianity as a positive legisla- 
tion for men's conduct and opinions in detail. So 
closely has this feeling associated itself with the words 
and actions of Christ, that it still influences those 
who are no longer under the error which produced it, 
and renders them unconsciously guilty of injustice in 
interpreting his history. 

Perhaps indeed we none of us conceive with suffi- 
cient distinctness, what it is that we mean, when we 
speak of taking Christ for our Pattern, Example, and 
Guide. A large portion of our sentiments respecting 
him, is derived from religious poetry, or from the 
rhetorical language which so liberally g arm shes the 
popular eloquence of the pulpit. Such influence has 
often been beneficial in its way, and very nutritive of 
the devout affections ; but it leaves behind it a vague- 
ness of impression which throws a kind of mysterious 
haze over the relation of our Lord's example to the 
duty of ordinary Christians in the actual world. When 
thoughtful men, taking the standard which is usually 
applied to this subject, compare their own circum- 
stances with those of Christ, and perceive the amaz- 
ing disparity between them — when they consider his 
gifts, his vocation, the world in which he lived, the 
persons with whom he had to deal, the whole state of 

f 3 



106 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



manners and opinion environing him, so different 
from that which now exists — and observe, that there 
is hardly one point in his recorded life, which finds 
its exact parallel in theirs — and yet hear divines, Sun- 
day after Sunday, in vague and pompous phrase call- 
ing on the people of this care-worn, money-getting, 
over-laboured nineteenth century, to shun riches and 
renounce the world, to follow the steps of Christ and 
walk in all things as he walked : — they feel themselves 
bewildered and almost mocked by exhortations like 
these; they cannot comprehend what such words mean 
in reference to themselves; they would fain ask — 
•What is it you urge me tor Consider my situation, 
and see if it be possible for me to do what you enjoin. 
Only show me, hew in my circumstances I can sepa- 
rate myself to a life of prayer and charity and absti- 
nence from all worldly things — and I will strive to 
imitate that divine Exemplar, whose beauty I will- 
ingly confess, though I feel that at present it can have 
no immediate application to a lot like mine/ 

If, therefore, the prophetic influence which should 
go forth from the life of Christ, is still to exert its 
healing and renovating power, we must clear away 
the impossibilities which seem to come between it 
and the world; we must show, how the words and 
acts of Christ, interpreted in their true and inward 
sense, may yet preserve a vital relationship to the 
wants and sorrows and holiest aspirations of the suf- 
fering humanity which at this day inhabits the earth. 
The distinction already made between fundamental 
principles and the words or acts which are their oc- 
casional expression, suggests the mode in which this 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



10? 



relationship may be maintained. Too formal and pro- 
saic a view is usually taken of what is meant by look- 
ing to a life or a character as a model. It must not 
be understood, that a pattern is held up before ns to 
be servilely copied, but an ideal whose spirit should 
be freely imbibed. TVhat such an example can alone 
beneficially supply, is a nevr life infused into our 1 con- 
victions and blended with our ovrn personality. Any 
other influence vrould be destructive of moral freedom 
and check individual self-development. For what is 
it that constitutes the man, and stamps itself on our 
reverence as character ? Not the manners of a per- 
son — not his speculative beliefs — not his opinions in 
religion or politics — not simply the kind of work to 
which he devotes himself, — these matters are often 
determined for him by the accident of his social posi- 
tion — but the spirit which is in operation beneath the 
surface of his life, and breaks forth in every outward 
expression of it — his honour, his purity, his faithful- 
ness, his strong affections, his expansive charity^ his 
deep devotion, his zeal and constancy in the pursuit 
of what is great and noble. And so it is with Christ, 
What is it that thrills our hearts and kindles our 
imaginations in the remembrance of him, and makes 
us come away from every meditation of his history, 
more full of tender thoughtfulness and holy aspira- 
tion? Not his outward bearing and manner of life 
—not his independence of a home and a secular vo- 
cation — not the particular strain in which he warned 
the erring and comforted the distressed — not the pre- 
cise way in which he encountered his enemies and 
submitted to his doom — not the little incidents of his 



108 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

journey ings and miracles and discourses, of his death 
and his re-appearance from the grave — for all these 
might be replaced by other circumstances and a diffe- 
rent fate, and the effect be still the same ; — but the 
spirit of fervent love, and patient trust, and stainless 
sanctity, and lofty hope, and religious devotedness, 
which shone through these external things, and has 
left on them the enduring brightness of its own glory. 
It is the inward life revealed through the outward 
life — the spirit of the character illuminating all its 
visible manifestations — which alone affords a fruitful 
subject of contemplation, and transferred by a reflec- 
tive understanding to new circumstances, supplies a 
free and living rule for the guidance of our own 
course. 

One of the first effects of this emancipation from 
the dead letter of Christianity, will be deeper sympa- 
thy for many earnest and struggling minds, who feel 
all their moral energies crushed, and faith well nigh 
extinguished within them, by the dull and formal ex- 
hortation which they perpetually encounter, to con- 
form their lives outwardly to the life of Christ. They 
are repelled from the effort, by a sense of its hope- 
lessness. Our object, therefore, should be, so to open 
their minds and hearts to the true reading of that 
richly significant life, that they may cast off their 
scrupulousness, and enter of themselves into spiritual 
communion with Christ, and feel what a virtue goes 
forth at every contact with his heavenly mind. Purer 
and simpler moral feeling, increased mental culture, 
a more open, rational and free interpretation of 
Scripture continually referred to the eternal standard 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



109 



within the breast — will best effect this change, and 
carry thousands with undiminished fervour and seri- 
ousness out of their present spiritual bondage, to the 
enjoyment of the liberty which Christ's message, 
heard in the deep undertones of its eternal truth, 
proclaims to captive souls. 

The study of a great and holy life, as that of Christ 
— is like the study of a beautiful work of Art, for the 
cultivation of the taste and the discipline of genius ; 
with this fundamental distinction, however, between 
the two cases, that the latter appeals only to imagina- 
tion and sensibility, the former acts upon the con- 
science and the will. But in both we equally think and 
feel ourselves into the hidden soul of power in the 
work before us. Strong spiritual affinities are awak- 
ened within us as we gaze, admire and love. We sur- 
render our inmost soul to the profound sympathy it 
inspires — not to bring away in our memories, an 
exact transcript of its light and shade, the grouping 
of its forms, and the blending of its hues— but to 
seize intuitively the eternal laws of beauty which it 
exemplifies, and the sense of which thoroughly im- 
bibed may enable us, though still at an humble dis- 
tance, to put forth a different work in a kindred spi- 
rit. The servile hand of the copyist may retrace every 
line and reproduce every variation of colour ; but the 
life of the great original will not be there. Only he 
who can feel as the master felt, and has studied his 
works to catch their spirit, will strike out conceptions 
that betray the same inner life and admit of any 
comparison with his. The monk that fasted forty 
days, to rival Christ's temptation in the wilderness — 



110 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

the Pope who goes through the annual mockery of 
washing the feet of beggars — Melancthon who ap- 
prenticed himself to a baker, because he thought 
Scripture literally enjoined him to eat bread in the 
sweat of his brow* — exhibit only the exaggeration of 
a principle which still pervades to no small extent the 
usages of some respectable sects, and tacitly restrains 
from the full exercise of spiritual liberty, not a few 
who fancy themselves the most unprejudiced and free. 
They are all fettered by the formalism of the letter, 
— and show that they do not yet understand what is 
meant by following the steps of Christ. The uncon- 
strained and simple-minded man, who without sup- 
pressing his healthy interest in the world, or giving 
up one harmless custom or innocent recreation, goes 
forth with kind and sympathizing heart among his 
fellow-creatures, to instruct their ignorance, to aid 
their strivings after a better condition, and to increase 
their means of rational enjoyment — is a truer fol- 
lower of Christ, and has more of his spirit, than the 
straitest conformer to the mere letter of precept and 
example written down in the New Testament. 

To give example a living influence, there must be 
sympathy; and Christ's character is a fitting object 
for sympathy, because it is steeped in the affections 
and redolent of love. A cold form of unexceptionable 
excellence would be powerless for the excitation of a 
kindred life. The reflection that Christ suffered for 
us, beautifully prepares and deepens the feeling that 
he has left us an example and we should follow his 
steps. This is the side too of our own nature and 

# The fact is mentioned by Mohler, in his ' Symbolik/ ch. v. § 44. 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



Ill 



our human experience, on which we most need the 
stimulus and encouragement of a great example. We 
have been cast into a world of abundant sin and woe ; 
and our highest duty is like Christ to suffer for it, 
that we may redeem it. The spirit of Christian sa- 
crifice belongs to all ages, and animates all pure and 
noble minds. It inspires the martyr for truth's sake 
and the self- devoting patriot or philanthropist, and 
gives him courage to do his work, and confidence 
to ask a blessing on it from heaven. Its agencies 
change ; its instruments vary ; its trials, difficulties, 
snares, and persecutions are diversified with the lapse 
of time and the progress of civilization : but its final 
object is ever one and the same — to free man from 
bondage and oppression, to lift up his countenance in 
the light of freedom and truth, to -reveal to him the 
worth of his own immortal mind, and to show him 
the living way that leads to heaven and God. Varied 
may be the work which the Gospel imposes on the 
faithful soul, but its impulse and aim are unalterable. 
It is of one and the same quality — in the patient, 
earnest instructor of the children of the poor — in the 
fearless asserter of unpopular truth against calumny 
and misrepresentation — in the undaunted reformer of 
social evils and w r rongs — in the patriot who lifts up 
an honest voice and a brave arm for right and freedom 
in his fatherland, and when fortune turns against 
him, prefers exile and poverty to the wages of shame. 
To all such, consoling is the remembrance and cheer- 
ing the example of the patient and self-sacrificing 
Son of God. His w r ords are a divine support — 6 Be 
of good cheer; I have overcome the world/ His 



112 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

spirit enters their hearts • and it makes them strong 
in weakness, and gives them peace in the depth of 
sorrow. They rejoice to suffer with the virtuous few 
who in every age have contended with ignorance and 
wickedness, and would fain have created around them 
a better and happier world. 

Where the influence of example is founded on the 
affections, and consists rather in a general impulse 
than a particular direction — it is even an advantage 
which heightens its effect, that it should be displayed 
amidst circumstances that cannot be directly paralleled 
with our own. The sympathy reaches us, but it is 
not vulgarized by too close a familiarity. It comes 
from a higher sphere, enriched with associations that 
bestow on it the character of a sacred poetry. We 
• are rather attracted than repelled by the remoteness 
from our ordinary experience, of the wondrous scenes 
in which Christ is depicted to us. The greatness 
and singularity of his work — its serene elevation 
above the low pursuits and exciting passions of the 
world — its suffering and its martyrdom — while they 
show very clearly, that we cannot be exhorted to walk 
literally as Christ walked, give at the same time a 
peculiar grandeur to all the expressions of his in- 
dwelling spirit, and cause them to make a deeper im- 
pression on the imagination — and, like certain great 
paintings seen from afar, bring out in bolder relief 
from a few broad masses of light and shade, the dis- 
tinctive features of his mind and character. That 
power of love, and holy trust, and entire self-sur- 
render to God, which is at once the preservation and 
the consecration of humanity — is here presented, as 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



113 



on some conspicuous theatre, with loftier stature and 
sublimer mien and more wonderful accompaniments — 
the living poetry of man's spiritual vocation — fitted 
to impress the heart with a profounder seriousness 
and to kindle the imagination with holier visions of 
excellence. Great emergencies, indeed, do not often 
occur, and heroic efforts are not perpetually wanted 
in the course of man's earthly life ; hut the spirit that 
could meet the one, and sustain the other — the spirit 
that could furnish the hero, when he is demanded — 
should ever be in reserve, prompt and ready for 
action, in the depths of the human soul ; and in the 
whole range of earth's traditions, no influence will be 
found so effectual to preserve and cherish it, as that 
image of gentle bravery and patient endurance and 
earnest faithfulness, which is drawn in the rich and 
unfading colours of the Gospel. 

Men exact too much from Christianity, and make 
too little profit of w T hat it actually offers. It is not 
the discipline of our reason. Reason can take care 
of itself. AVhat Christianity yields, is nurture for 
the affections and stimulus to the will ; and this it 
gives through sympathy with the life of Christ — the 
only availing corrective of the selfishness which so 
deeply infects our world, and which reason too often 
does not check but rather justifies. — The onward 
movement of the world is effected by a composition of 
forces; and Religion is one of them. A large spi- 
ritual impulse has been thrown into human affairs by 
Christianity; too large and too strong, it might seem, 
if the letter of its precepts were brought to bear in 
unqualified vigour on each particular case of human 
conduct — but not more than sufficient, if the number 



114 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

and stubbornness of the obstacles be taken into view, 
which its spirit has everywhere to overcome. The 
same Being who gave the impulse its strength, foresaw 
and calculated on the limitations that would prac- 
tically restrain its energy. If the humility, the self- 
denial, the forgiveness of wrongs, the contempt of 
riches, the abstinence from all physical force, the re- 
nunciation of the world, inculcated by the Gospel — 
appear to some excessive and unreasonable, and op- 
posed to the advance of civilization — let it be recol- 
lected, that the inner principle out of which such 
tendencies emerge, exerts its force precisely in that 
direction, where, in the actual condition of society, a 
strong counteraction is most needed. Reason is ever 
sufficiently prepared with its abatements and its quali- 
fications. Lovingly and thoughtfully meditate the 
life of Christ ; drink its spirit into your inmost soul ; 
and you will meet with no serious difficulty in its 
practical application. Paradoxical as it may seem to 
those who have not well considered the subject, it is 
the copious infusion of a rich poetic unction into the 
Gospel representations of faith and duty, which makes 
them practical and intelligible above all that was ever 
taught in the books of the philosophers. For poetry 
is a voice that issues from and finds its echo in the 
deep popular heart, where lies the source of all faith 
and of all enthusiasm for good. The speculation of 
the schools stands aloof from great popular sympa- 
thies, and plays off the dazzling coruscations of its 
cold and powerless light around the heads of the 
cultivated few; with how little direct effect on the 
popular morality and on popular progress, the history 
of philosophical opinion in all ages abundantly proves. 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



115 



A divine element clearly manifests itself in all the 
purest and highest minds. It is the witness of their 
parentage. It is the omen of their destiny. Y\^hat 
a sorrow comes over us, when they pass away from 
earth ! We feel as though an influence had gone, 
which made the world more beautiful and blessed 
while it remained. How sacred is the poet's grave, 
sleeping in the quiet bosom of the green vale, beneath 
the shadow of the mighty hills, to the solemn music 
of the everlasting brooks, amidst which his pure spirit 
had held daily communings with God ! — We feel 
holier as we bend over it and mourn. Gfdike nature, 
but deeper, holier still — is our emotion at the foot 
of the Cross of Christ. What a spirit, we reflect, 
was then eclipsed to this darkened world ! What a 
wisdom and a love then ceased to give their strength 
to human weakness, and shed their healing on human 
woe ! His gospel yet remains — embalming his words, 
and linking our hearts through ages in unbroken sym- 
pathy with his immortal spirit. When his life rises 
up before us from that beautiful record — so calm, so 
pure, so gentle, loving and holy — a spot of stainless 
light on the dark and turbid surface of the world's 
history — we feel what a divinity was in it: what a 
fitting mediator he was between this life of sin and 
woe and the blessed peace of heaven ! We feel there 
is a consolation — an assurance — in Christ, which no- 
thing purely of earth can give. Through him we are 
spiritually united with God. His life is the way by 
which we ascend to heaven. His spirit is the fount 
of living waters. He who drinks of them, shall never 
die. 



116 



VIII. 

THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 

2 CoBi^THLiys iii. 15, 16, 
" The veil is upon tlieir heart/' 

" [Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be 
taken away.'' 

It was a doctrine of the celebrated Origen and some 
other fathers of the ancient Alexandrine Church, that 
there are different senses in Scripture, one hidden 
beneath the other, which Christians successively pe- 
netrate into, as they advance in the spiritual life. In 
reference to Scripture, this doctrine is wholly unten- 
able. Scripture in any one passage can have but a 
single sense- — that which was present to the mind of 
its author when he wrote. In the several productions 
of which it consists, it is an expression of the thought 
of one conscious and reflecting human being. It is 
otherwise, however, in that grander TTord, where the 
Infinite Mind has immediately written down his 
thoughts — that i elder Scripture/ of which our Bible 
is but a partial transcript and conveys but a limited 
conception. Here we may proceed from height to 
height continually — one truth more comprehensive 
and sublime rising up behind another in endless suc- 
cession. The mind of man, as it grows, opens more 
and more into the interior workings of the mind of 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 



117 



God. As one integument after another of sensual 
blindness is taken away, and the inner life of his im- 
mortal spirit comes more freely into operation, he 
acquires deeper insight, and discerns great and unsus- 
pected realities hidden under the surface of things. 
Through the dim veil of the visible and perishing, he 
catches a glimpse of the vast significance of the un- 
seen and the eternal. 

The natural man has a veil upon his heart. He 
sees what strikes the eye ; he hears what enters the 
ear; and the impressions that act upon his senses, 
form as yet the only realities with which he is con- 
versant. Only by degrees he turns his thoughts in- 
ward on himself, and acquires the ideas of truth, duty, 
mental dignity, God and divine things. His earliest 
language to express these higher conceptions, is bor- 
rowed from the world of sense. He can only speak 
intelligibly of them by figure and similitude. The 
wind, the stream, the tree, sunshine and darkness — 
help him to body forth and represent the invisible 
operations of the spirit. The seen becomes to him 
a dim mirror of the unseen. A secondary and far 
deeper sense slowly emerges to his view from beneath 
the grosser and more obvious meaning that lies on 
the broad face of the world. He learns at length, 
that man's whole wisdom is not exhausted in the 
doctrine — 'let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die' 
— and gains a faint though ever-strengthening per- 
ception of the higher truth— 'Man liveth not by bread 
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God/ Moral and religious ideas are now 
interwoven with his whole conception of the life of 



118 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DXJ^Y. 

man. A sublimer thought enters into his interpre- 
tation of human action and suffering. As man walks 
the earth, a light is seen to pursue his footsteps and 
encompass his deeds, which discriminates them, as 
read in the moral sense of the universe, from the 
dark, ignominious destiny of the brute. Animal wants 
and impulses are still indeed in operation at the pri- 
mitive groundwork of his being — but capable of trans- 
formation into affection and moral sentiment, by the 
higher ends to which they may be subordinated. The 
demands of hunger and thirst, for example, and of 
shelter from nature's inclemency, call into existence 
innumerable branches of useful industry, stimulate 
contrivance and forethought, awaken the love of pro- 
perty, and weave out of it those earliest social rela- 
tions which give occasion to the virtues of reciprocal 
faithfulness and honesty.- Again, the union of the 
sexes among human beings is something very different 
from the transient pairing of the feathered tribes. It 
is the symbol and outward expression of a holy, in- 
ward and enduring love — the pledge of social order 
and harmony — consecrated by the highest sanctities, 
ennobled by the spirit of self- denial and responsibility, 
and embalmed in the richest essence of a divine affec- 
tion. Society, in its widest range, national and inter- 
national — involves far higher elements than the gre- 
garious instinct of brutes. It is the embodiment of 
a great moral idea. The most refined conceptions of 
man's intellect — law, right, freedom, the common 
weal, human brotherhood — are its essential constitu- 
ents, and stand forth with most distinct manifestation 
to the mental eye from which the veil of sensual bar- 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 119 

barism has been taken away. In this stage of human 
development, life presents itself under the solemn as- 
pect of duty. The idea of what ought to be,, rises up 
from the bosom of what is, and interprets its confu- 
sion, and elevates man's earthly existence into a grand 
moral effort, which must be bravely and consistently 
maintained, though wealth and honour and fame 
should not attend it, and his best hope should perish 
with the extinction of his mortal breath. This is the 
moral sense of the great book of Providence — a sense 
far more exalted and beautiful than the sensual and 
the selfish, though we could not go bevond it — a sense 
in which many noble and earnest spirits have found 
contentment and inward dignity of soul, though they 
had no clear belief of an immortal inheritance. With 
simple and truthful hearts they toned to such light- 
as was before them, and the carnal veil was removed. 
Amidst the tumult and disorder of human affairs, 
they traced the lineaments of a deeper harmony and 
a grander truth. They saw and reverenced the great 
moral significance of the life that now is, though 
unable to penetrate the mysterious darkness of the 
eternity which surrounds it. 

But this is not the final rest of men's thoughts. 
From the moral, they pass on to the religious and 
spiritual meaning of life. Steady persistence in the 
path of duty, and habitual contemplation of the uni- 
verse from the higher point of view which it affords 
— gradually open the mind to the perception of yet 
sublimer truths. There is one position in existence, 
and perhaps only one — surveyed from which the 
widely scattered and fragmentary indications of Di- 



I 

120 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

vine purpose combine themselves into harmony, and 
disclose to us the commencement and rudimental ten- 
dencies of a grander order of things. It is the position 
in which we fix ourselves by resolute conformity to 
the dictates of conscience — when we look on life in 
the spirit of duty, and interpret its mysteries by the 
moral law within the breast. In this attitude, and 
with the spiritual eye sent out reverentially in this 
direction — the mind is prepared to accept and appro- 
priate such further discoveries of divine truth, as may 
dawn on it in the fervid action of its own powers 
from within, or may be brought to it by the revela- 
tions of some more gifted spirit ftx)in without. For 
contact with a prophetic spirit — above all, with its 
perfection in a Christ, where the deepest faith in 
things unseen is interfused in living union with more 
than human love and spotless sanctity of life- — excites 
and enkindles the latent elements of the immortal 
mind, and draws forth from the dim surmises and 
shadowy anticipations where but the germs of truth 
exist — the strengthening outline and deepening fea- 
tures in which truth itself ever becomes more dis- 
tinctly visible. With open face we behold as in a 
mirror, the glory of that prophetic soul, and are trans- 
formed into the same image from glory to glory, even 
as by the spirit of the Lord. This gradual transition 
in in air's mental progress, towards higher views of 
life, is in accordance with that general law of develop- 
ment which pervades the universe, and yields a strong 
presumption, that the later views, when they grow 
out of the earlier and harmonize with them — are an 
approximation to eternal truth. As the moral aspect 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 



121 



of existence took its images and its illustrations from 
the world of the senses, and was rudely mirrored on 
the coarse expanse of outward things — so the heavenly 
finds its types and its intimations in the moral world, 
and rises up through it with a softer and serener 
beauty into the spiritual ken. Another veil is re- 
moved; new light is admitted to the stronger organ. 
The Spirit of the Lord has quickened the perceptions 
of the soul : and now — in duty, trial, sorrow, and 
death — amid the questionings of reason, and the an- 
guish of conscience, and the deep yearnings of affec- 
tion — in that strange, mysterious play of light and 
shade which flits over the moral aspect of man's life 
— it reads a grander and more solemn purpose ; it dis- 
cerns the indication of higher ends • it traces the faint 
imagery of the calm, harmonious heaven, reflected 
from the dark and troubled waters of the world. 

Of things invisible the evidence can never be such, 
as those who rely on purely intellectual assurance, 
will demand. It is to be found very much in the state 
of the believing mind — in the particular aspect from 
which the subject is contemplated. It never can be 
presented in a completely demonstrative form. The 
materials for a conclusion lie scattered round us far 
and wide on every hand. The attraction which ga- 
thers them into one view — the chain of thought which 
binds them together in a continuous argument, and 
renders them the expression of a comprehensive truth 
— must come from the reflecting mind and be a 
transference to them of a portion of its own moral 
vitality. So true it is, in the highest of all senses, 
that the kingdom of God must be found within us. 



122 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

It is the usual recompense of a calra, pure and devout 
soul; as it advances in years, to acquire clearer insight 
and deeper trust. It turns more and more to the 
great Lord of conscience and faith ; and in the mir- 
rored image of his divine life, beholds a type of its 
own. By the light of his spirit this earthly existence 
is transformed and beautified. It is taken out of its 
forlorn isolation. Its manifold relations with things 
eternal and unseen become perceptible. It is seen as 
but the commencing term of an infinite progression. 
The barriers vanish, which seemed to shut it in ; and 
infinity opens a sphere for its boundless course of 
future development. 

When this spiritual conception of existence has 
once got firm possession of the mind, the Future offers 
perpetual compensations for all that is relinquished 
in the Past. As mortal life wears away, a deeper feel- 
ing grows up within us of the life that cannot perish. 
A veil is removed, and the spiritual vision discerns 
what was before invisible. To minds of a devout 
temper the eternal is mirrored in the temporal. It is 
in the celestial sense that they read the varied page 
of life. The greatest and nearest of all realities is 
now placed, as it were, within their spiritual grasp. 
They rise no more darkly and doubtingly from the 
seen to the unseen ; but, reversing the previous order 
of thought, they bring down the light of the unseen 
on the seen — to clear away the mystery and dissolve 
the shadows of earth : — and they find the true signifi- 
cance of all present appearances and events in their 
relation to the grand catastrophe of the human drama 
which is to come on the scene, when death's dark 
curtain is updrawn. 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 123 

Encompassed by a fading and dissolving world, and 
musing on its evanescent scenes in that spirit of holy 
trust which infuses the serene blessedness of a Chris- 
tian life — we are then most conscious of the eternal 
interest that we have in God— the veil which ordi- 
narily rests on human hearts, is then most completely 
removed, and a clear, unimpeded prospect lies before 
us into the spiritual world — when we turn our thoughts 
within, and compare those elements of our being 
which bear on them the deepest impress of durability, 
with the external shows of things— fluctuating, pe- 
rishable and transitory — amidst which our diviner 
functions find the stimulus and occasion of their pre- 
sent exercise and discipline. 

Oar outward life flows on with ceaseless change in 
almost every element of which it is composed. Look 
back some twenty or five- and- twenty years — you that 
have already passed the meridian of your days. Con- 
trast the circumstances which made your whole world 
of thought and action and endeavour then, with those 
in which you find yourselves now. You can hardly 
recognize the identity of your existence. You seem 
to have dropped into another planet, and to belong to 
a different order of being. Vast events, in that inter- 
val, have swept over the busy and crowded stage of 
human affairs, and given a new colour to the aspects 
of the time. Great questions are in an altered posi- 
tion. Opinions in every direction have made rapid 
progress. On many points you are yourself conscious, 
that you think and feel differently from what you 
then did. Old friends, too, are gone. Associates in 
earlier labours and interests are no more. The fire 

Gr 2 



124 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 

of youth is sensibly quenched in yourself and others. 
The snows of time are falling fast on your heads. 
Hand and yoice are feebler than they were. Younger 
and more energetic men are at your side, sharing 
with you more and more eyery day, the influence and 
activity with which once you filled almost alone the 
place assigned you by Proyidence. 

YeSj life flows on unceasingly. Yet on its descend- 
ing stream there still survive — a few high trusts — a 
few great principles — a few glorious truths — a few 
blessed remembrances — which change, calamity; be- 
reayement cannot touch — amid which the soul of the 
yirtuous sits calmly enthroned — and which go with 
him — an enduring and unassailable possession, on 
which the last enemy cannot lay his hand — through 
the dark and lonely chasm where life's waters preci- 
pitate themselyes into eternity. Yes, life flows on; — 
and the bright banks and the sunny fields and the 
joyous woods of youth, it leayes far, far behind — 
never to be trodden again : but a grander scenery now 
shuts it in, rich with the reflections of a manifold ex- 
perience, and steeped in the softer and holier hues of 
a hope that beams more serenely beautiful with life's 
decline. 

Life flows on; — and the fragments of many a 
broken plan and shattered hope and ruined ambition 
float beside us on its wave. Yet have we rescued 
some treasures from the wreck, and much abides with 
us that vre can never lose. We have learned, that 
worldly success is not always the attendant of per- 
sonal merit ; that riches do not always bring happi- 
ness; nor elevated position true dignity of soul: but 



THE VEIL TAKEN FHOM THE HEART. 



125 



that a peace, worth all the specious goods which this 
world has at its disposal, will ever be found in a sim- 
ple and contented mind, in an affectionate heart, and 
in a pure and honourable life. — If this be all that we 
have learned^ the world's great teachings will not have 
been wasted on us ; and we shall take with us into 
eternity, the seeds of a nobler wisdom and the condi- 
tions of higher advancement. — Life flows on ; and a 
new generation, strangers to us and to the remem- 
brances that are dearest to our hearts — are gay and 
active on its banks. Amongst them are our children 
and our children's children ; and the sunshine of their 
bright and happy hours revives the memory of our 
own youth, and calls out again with its genial warmth, 
sympathies which had else lain cold and dead. Amidst 
them too, invisible to them, but clearlv discernible bv 
our spiritual eyesight — are shadowy forms of those 
long passed from earth, who once occupied the very 
ground where they are now revelling in the warm 
flush of joyous existence, and with us in bygone days 
shared in the same eager and exciting interests which 
now engross their souls. 

There is something wonderful in this unchangeable 
stability and tenderness of human affection. Years 
have no power over it ; nay cause it rather to strike a 
deeper root, and to put forth fresh blossoms on the 
bough that is grey with age. It is the experience of 
most as they advance in life, that the scenes and 
companions of early years acquire new vividness in 
the memory and a stronger hold on the heart. When 
we draw nigh to the dim threshold of the eternal 
scene, and a solemn shade overcasts all the nearer 



126 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

realities of earth — tlie images of life's morning come 
forth with renovated clearness from the faded past, 
and cluster round us again ; as if to show, they had a 
lasting place in our souls, and were to usher us with 
their friendly companionship into that unknown world 
of which Death is the mysterious gate. A breath as 
from childhood passes over the spirit, and transports 
it once more into the scenery and influences of its 
first home. There is the dear, familiar abode, dis- 
tinctly visible to memory's eye, where life's fresh 
joys and earliest sorrows were known— each nook and 
passage, the very pictures on the walls, and the old- 
fashioned furniture — all, tell-tales of a thousand little 
histories—just as they stood a generation ago, as 
though time had touched them not : — there is the 
garden, as it was when our childish hands cultivated 
the flower-pot and plucked the fruit from the bush :— 
there are the fields and the woods, fresh and sweet as 
they were, when we rambled through them, respon- 
sive in the careless gladness of our hearts to the voice 
of Spring : — and there — amongst them still — are the 
human forms which give them a deeper interest and 
a tenderer charm. Yea, the one dear and venerated 
friend, to whom life perhaps owes its happiest influ- 
ence and most enduring impression of all that is 
good — whose death is separated from us by half a 
century — whose cherished words have slept within 
the soul, not forgotten, though unuttered to the world, 
amidst a crowd of later cares and subsequent affec- 
tions — comes back to us again with a new life from 
that distant day in the silent vigils of memory — as if 
to remind us, that he is now the sharer of a higher 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 127 

being — to claim from us on the verge of life, our 
whole debt of unextinguished affection — and to soften 
our departure from those we must shortly leave, by 
the welcome of one whom we long to behold again. 

To one who recognizes in the indestructible in- 
stincts of man's soul, the living root of religious 
truth, there is something of far weightier import than 
an amiable sentimentality, in this revival towards the 
close of life of its earliest recollections. For these 
are phenomena which constantly mark the last stages 
of the soul's earthly existence ; and whatever attempts 
may be made to explain thern from physical causes — 
if surveyed in the broad lights of a comprehensive re- 
ligious philosophy, they seem replete with moral sig- 
nificance. That the best impressions of our human 
experience — the images of our happiest and most in- 
nocent hours, and the memories of those most justly 
venerable and dear — should throng around us with a 
new vitality as life's evening draws on, and cast their 
quiet and gentle light on the impending shade of 
death — is scarcely reconcilable with the supposition, 
that the spirit of which such remembrances are the 
most precious possession, is itself on the point of ex- 
piring for ever.— And O my friends, if this sustaining 
faith, which we shall all need, when a few more years 
have past away- — which even now we need continually, 
when an invisible hand plucks from the coronal of our 
domestic happiness, the choicest flowers of which it is 
woven — if this blessed and glorious faith is the fruit 
and recompense, not of metaphysical acuteness or 
dogmatic orthodoxy, but of a pure, humble, gentle 
and devout heart, filled with the spirit and aspiring 



128 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

after the life of Christ — let us cast out from our hearts 
and our homes, all that is sensual, selfish, unloving, 
worldly and base, and cherish one another, while we 
dwell together here, with holy affection, as members 
of the immortal family of God : — that, when Death 
steps into the midst of us, it may be, not to wrap our 
being in a deeper gloom, but to take the last veil from 
our hearts, and open our inward vision to the light of 
other worlds; that in our closing hours we may be- 
come more distinctly conscious of the invisible pre- 
sence that surrounds us, and behold the forms of the 
departed looking upon us as of yore with eyes of un- 
altered love, and hear the sweet tones of their well- 
known voice, as they bid us welcome to another home, 
and take us with them to the endless peace of our 
Father's house. 



129 



IX. 

THE COINCIDENCE OE GENERAL AND SPECIAL 
PROVIDENCE. 

KoMAjfS xi, 36. 

" Of Him, and through. Hrm 3 and to Him, are all things ; to Him 
be glory for ever." 

The rapid intuitions of religious fervour sometimes 
explore the depths of the spiritual world more search- 
ingly, than the keenest elaborations of logical sub- 
tlety. The souPs eye, quickened by faith, pierces 
with a momentary glance through mysteries which 
repel the scrutiny of science. How exhaustive is 
this brief aphorism of the apostle, summing up in 
the sharply contrasted force of three prepositions, the 
whole doctrine of Providence I c Of Him, through 
Him, to Him, are all things/ God is the primal 
source of being, its living agency, and its final issue. 
His incomprehensible essence enfolds the universe — 
originating, pervading, and completing all things. 
What can Philosophy add from all her treasures to 
this glorious utterance of the heart's wisdom? Yet 
into what an abyss of thought does it plunge us ! 
We tremble with awe as we look down into it. We 
feel as if brought within the shadow of a truth, which 
has its roots in the impenetrable secrets of inmost 

g 3 



130 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

being, and shoots up into heights where man's intel- 
lect cannot follow it. To embrace that truth in all 
its amplitude, is possible only to the Infinite Mind. 
It is enough for us, if we can understand so much of 
it, as is practically applicable to ourselves ; — if amidst 
the vast umbrageous wilderness which stretches round 
us into boundless depths on every side, we can discern 
the friendly bough which shelters our mortal lot, laden 
with fruits of richest solace and heavenly strength for 
the sustenance of our immortal souls. 

It is singular, that the earliest speculations of man- 
kind should often have anticipated the profoundest 
questions of a later philosophy. There seems wrapped 
up in the human soul a latent divination of the high- 
est truths. When it first awakens from the trance 
of barbarism, it sketches a loose, irregular outline of 
them on the dim blank of the Infinite, which the re- 
peated essays of subsequent generations have done 
little more than attempt to correct and define and fill 
up. It is humbling to reflect, on how few topics in 
speculative philosophy, we have made any considerable 
advance beyond the mere surmises of our forefathers. 
On the other hand, in the vague prescience which en- 
lightened the intellectual infancy of our race, we have 
a consolatory indication of the soul's affinity with the 
Spirit which governs all things, and of the changeless 
unity of aim which pervades its aspirations and rules 
its destiny. The very perturbations of its course, 
watched and computed from age to age, compensate 
each other, and yield the pure curve of unerring di- 
rection, in which the Creator projected it, to move 
for ever. 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



131 



The doctrine of Providence is one of the darkest 
and most difficult problems on which the human intel- 
lect has been exercised ; yet it is one which men have 
loved to discuss from the remotest times. On few 
subjects has speculation been wilder or more conflict- 
ing. The superior wisdom of the present day con- 
sists in the better knowledge, derived from experience, 
of the limits of our faculties : and the Gospel which 
puts the grounds of faith within ourselves, has dis- 
closed in the reflected light of Christ's own life, the 
few unquestionable facts of our inner consciousness 
which are the basis of all Religion. Of such facts 
we must ever keep firm hold, in venturing forth to 
any distance from the shore, on that out-lying bound- 
less sea of speculation where thousands of rash, pre- 
sumptuous spirits have foundered and been lost . There 
was a deep wisdom in the governing maxim of the old 
Catholic Church — though often, it must be confessed, 
meagrely understood and falsely applied — that truth 
is to be found in a central point equally remote from 
divergent errors. The conditions of health are then 
most clearly perceived, when they have been compared 
with the irregular workings of disease. Let us apply 
this principle to the question before us. 

We must look for the true doctrine of Providence, 
in the mean between fatalism which annihilates hu- 
man free-agency in the overwhelming sovereignty of 
God — and that opposite theory of the universe, which 
leaves man to pick his way and secure his well-being, 
by a light within himself for which he cannot account, 
amidst agencies originating he knows not how, and 
working with tendencies whose final issue he cannot 



132 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



divine. The fanatical Theist loses all sense of law 
and of rational self-subjection to its requirements, in 
helpless prostration before the irresistible omnipotence 
of arbitrary Will. The cold-blooded Atheist discerns 
law, and sees how he must act in relation to it ; but 
he does not feel what law implies, and conceives no 
trust and experiences no joy from relying on it and 
co-operating with it, In both forms of error we 
recognize the uncontrolled and exaggerated operation 
of tendencies which are alike rooted in the- necessary 
constituents of roan's nature — which are needed to 
check and balance each other— and which harmoni- 
ously combined would issue in the proper belief of a 
Providence. 

Divines make a distinction between the doctrines 
of a general and a special Providence. The former 
recognizes an intelligent Author and Governor of the 
universe, and supposes Him to have constructed it 
at first on principles so perfectly wise and good, that 
they suffice of themselves to its orderly maintenance 
and development, without any occasion for special 
interpositions. The very admission indeed of such a 
necessity would imply a want of completeness in the 
original construction. But this view, apparently so 
honourable to the Deity, excludes Him from all direct 
and constant intercourse with his creatures, and ren- 
ders Him of little present interest to them. The 
laws and tendencies which He is supposed to have 
impressed on matter at the beginning of all things, 
intervene rather as a barrier than a communication 
between Him and them; for having once set them in 
action, it is thought more consistent with his majesty, 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



133 



that He should henceforth cease from having any im- 
mediate share in the conduct of the universe. Man 
is placed in the midst of the divine works, to study 
and learn to execute the purpose indicated by them,— 
and to penetrate by reason through the interposed 
media of second causes to the great remote F rst 
Cause, who dwells outside of creation, surveying it 
with a benevolent self-complacency, but admitting no 
human soul into his living presence. This may be 
described as the mechanical theory of Providence — 
the last and most refined expression of that anthro- 
pomorphic feeling — that interpretation of the ways of 
God from the works of man — which has so deeply 
imprinted itself on the successive phases of theological 
opinion. It has been a favourite theory with many 
philosophical Theists. We discern traces of its influ- 
ence in Pope^s Universal Prayer and Essay on Man, 
It was widely current, with divers modifications, 
among the Deists and. free-thinkers of the last cen- 
tury — that numerous class, who renouncing all belief 
in positive revelation, still retained their faith in a 
Supreme Mind and a moral government. It was a 
view well suited to men, in whom intellect was more 
strongly developed than feeling — whose studies had 
made them familiar with the uniform and unfailing 
operation of law in the divine economy of the world, 
but who could ill appreciate those fervent demands for 
a more intimate communion with God, which spring 
up irrepressibly in all devotional temperaments. It 
is not an atheistical view, but it involves an atheistical 
tendency; because it renders the belief in a God sim- 
ply an intellectual, not a moral, necessity to the hu- 



134 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



man soul. When God ceases to be a daily need for 
our spiritual strength, and refreshment, there is a 
disposition to dispense "with Him as a superfluous hy- 
pothesis; and to acquiesce in the ultimate sufficiency 
of law considered in itself. 

Such a view could not suffice for men of a different 
cast of mind — in fact; never has sufficed for the ma- 
jority of religious persons in any age. Unacquainted 
with philosophical theories of the universe, and having 
little or no knowledge of any but the simplest and 
most obvious laws of nature — such persons admit un- 
questioned the traditional belief of their forefathers 
into warm and susceptible souls — and find in their 
reliance on the omnipresent agency of God; as the 
power which directs all their steps; and orders every 
event with a view to their spiritual discipline — the 
one great idea ever at hand; to solve life's mysteries 
and yield them patience and trust under its trials. 
These are the believers in a special Providence : and 
the followers of all the great popular monotheisms — 
Jews, Mohammedans, and Christians — so long as they 
have been satisfied with the simple doctrines of their 
primitive belief, and have not ventured on philoso- 
phical refinements; have ever clung with remarkable 
tenacity to such views, and almost looked on the re- 
tention of them as the test of a genuine faith. 

The former class apprehend God by their under- 
standings; searching Him through the depths and in- 
tricacies of his visible works. Law, conceived in its 
abstractest form, is the grand intellectual scale by 
which they ascend to the heights of Deity, where the 
object of their worship sits distant and awful on the 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE, 



135 



silent throne of the universe, and casts from afar the 
shadow of a cold reverence on their hearts. The lat- 
ter are persons of lively faith and quick sensibilities, 
who feel God as a living presence in their inmost 
hearts, to comfort and counsel them amidst the world's 
daily toils and temptations. Their ardent devo- 
tion springs over the intervening agency of law, and 
mounts at once to God as the one great reality of ex- 
istence — the immediate Dispenser and unerring Con- 
ductor of every influence "which mingles in their va- 
ried flow of being. Life wears to them the one plain 
and simple aspect of a preparation for the judgment- 
seat of God. Ignorant of the grander and more ge- 
neral laws which embrace their humble lot, and send 
into it the impulses that shape its course, they only 
see in its changes direct workings of the hand of God. 
Eveiy blessing that crowns their faithful labours, they 
accept as God's immediate answer to their prayers. 
Every trial which they have been spared, and every 
snare out of which they have been delivered, reveals 
to them a clear case of Divine interposition in their 
favour. In the sorrows which have humbled and so- 
bered their hearts, when pride and exultation were 
becoming too strong — they recognize the chastise- 
ments which the vigilance of a Father's love saw they 
needed, and which He specially appointed for their 
correction. "With the one class, everything is law, ope- 
rating uniformly and necessarily. With the other, 
everything depends on the immediate determinations 
of the Divine Mind, influenced by the moral deserts 
of his creatures. — Such is the broad distinction be- 
tween the doctrines of a general and a special provi- 



136 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 

dence. It indicates tendencies which have each their 
fitting place in the human mind, but yielded to im- 
plicitly and followed into their logical results inde- 
pendently of one another, terminate in the extreme 
conclusions already noticed of fatalism and atheism— 
in the former case, will annihilating law, in the latter, 
law annihilating will. 

It remains to be shown, what is the element of 
truth involved in each of these theories. For in every 
form of opinion that has exercised an extensive sway 
amongst mankind, there is always some truth; not 
indeed the whole truth, but at least a side of it per- 
ceptible to those who put themselves in the righ 
point of view for apprehending it, and which only be- 
comes error by isolation from other truths that should 
furnish the needful qualification. There is a sense 
in which the philosophical doctrine of Providence is 
true. All outward events and phenomena are em- 
braced under the stern and irreversible dominion of 
law. Apparent exceptions disappear when more tho- 
roughly examined. Science is a perpetual revelation 
of law. The universe is a compound of laws, one 
working under and within another — the most minute 
and special embraced in the more general, and issuing 
from their combination. Even effects that depend on 
human volition — such as particular acts, dispositions 
and occupations — are shown by the results of statis- 
tical inquiry, to stand in a certain uniform relation to 
external circumstances, and to come so nearly within 
the limits of law as to be almost susceptible in gene- 
ral terms of prediction. We may affirm, then, with 
the philosophic theist, that God manifests Himself 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



137 



only through, law ; that law is his uniform mode of 
agency; that we can know Him through nature in 
no other way; and that consequently, the more we 
know of the laws of nature, the more we know, in 
this outward sense, of God. 

But there is another way of becoming acquainted 
with God — the way of spiritual experience, opened to 
us in our souls. Through this medium God exercises 
his providence in a different manner from his govern- 
ment of the material world. Here also it is true, 
that analogy and a perception of consequences forbid 
us to assume, that God acts without law, and that his 
intercourse with intelligent and sympathizing natures, 
is in any degree subject to caprice or arbitrary deter- 
mination. But the laws which govern the spiritual 
world, lie deeper and are less apprehensible by us ; 
they have a wider and subtler ramification of influ- 
ence ; they depend on conditions peculiar to the re- 
gion of mind. We here approach those ( dim-disco- 
vered tracts ' of being- — the border-land, as it were, of 
the finite and the Infinite — -where our instruments of 
observation fail us, and our mental vision is lost and 
confounded in depths and altitudes of thought for 
which we can find no measures of comparison. A few 
points alone are definitely fixed, to guide us as far as 
we can go. We must not violate the first principles 
of eternal reason : we must not disregard those in- 
stinctive promptings of our spiritual nature, which 
are as much fundamental realities of our being, and 
as essential conditions of all truth, as the principles 
of reason itself : and in our earnest efforts to find out 
God and understand his ways, we must admit no 



138 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



view inconsistent Trith the highest notion that we can 
form of a perfect Spirit. Within such limits we are 
to seek the great truth of a Divine Providence, 

It is the first intuition of Keligion — confirmed by 
Christianity, whose vital dogmas breathe its concen- 
trated essence — that through the soul we have direct 
access to God, and by a trustful heart and a submitted 
will and a devoted service, may spiritually unite our- 
selves with Him. The precise relation indeed of mam's 
will and agency to the Divine, is one of those myste- 
ries which God has reserved to Himself. We gaze 
upon it with solemn awe, and pass on ; for it is inex- 
plicable. All attempts to fathom it, involve the con- 
tradictions which rush in on the bewildered under- 
standing, as soon as the finite seeks to grasp the In- 
finite. Let us be content to recognize — as landmarks 
in the illimitable field that spreads before us — one or 
two unquestionable facts that are clearly attested by 
the inner consciousness and verified by reflection, 
without presuming to determine the logical connec- 
tion between them, or lapsing into sceptical despair 
because we cannot trace it. — We know from the sure 
witness within, that we have a power of voluntarily 
doing, or forbearing to do, that which presents itself 
to us under the circumstances in which we are placed, 
as morally right or morally wrong' — in a religious 
sense, of allying ourselves with, or opposing ourselves 
to, the spiritual agency in which we revere the sove- 
reign legislation of the Universe. That such acts are 
properly our own — that in performing them, we are 
something more than passive instruments mechani- 
cally set in action by a higher power — is proved to all 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



139 



men practically, beyond the possibility of dispute, by 
the effects of that inward reaction which produces 
self-approval in the one case, and self-condemnation 
or remorse in the other. Here, then, we have one 
great spiritual fact established — that of individual re- 
sponsibility. Again, from reason we are equally sure, 
that the results of our choice, whether it has been for 
or against the moral law — when they fall out of our 
minds into the vast tide of events which is rolling 
round us and sweeping past us in the external world, 
will be taken up by the great restorative processes of 
universal law, and wrought out by the Supreme Wis- 
dom, from whatever moral influence they originally 
proceeded, into the unfailing issues of ultimate justice 
and mercy. Here we recognize another fact, which 
reason equally forbids us to question — the absolute 
sovereignty of God. On these two facts— incapable 
of perfect reconcilement in our limited view, yet each 
resting on unanswerable evidence of its own — is sus- 
pended the great problem of Divine Providence. 

The vital point in the question immediately inter- 
esting us now — is this : — the power of voluntary ap- 
proximation to God or voluntary recession from Him, 
which consciousness testifies we all possess — intro- 
duces a new element into the conception of Divine 
law, which meets the demands of many a devout soul 
for the consolations of a special Providence. The pre- 
cise distinction between matter and mind, it may not 
be possible for us to explain ; but this we can see — 
that they present a different subject to the action of 
GocVs Spirit ; and that the Divine agency, though per- 
vading the external as well as the mental world, and 



140 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

operating in both under the guidance of wise and be- 
nignant law, sustains from the very nature of spirit, 
a more intimate relation to the latter than to the 
former, and in its effects upon it, must be modified 
by the moral condition of the recipient mind. There 
may be, therefore, from the mysterious correlation 
between the Divine and the human spirit involved in 
the fact of man's free agency — a special adaptation of 
Divine influences to the moral requirements of each 
individual case, without its being necessary to sup- 
pose, that God ever acts arbitrarily or otherwise than 
in strict accordance with uniform law. He may treat 
man in every instance, as man, by his own deliberate 
effort or culpable negligence, has put himself in a 
condition to be treated : and thus there is a sense in 
which it may be philosophically true, that God exer- 
cises a special providence, every moment that we 
breathe, over the lives of all of us. 

A few obvious illustrations will render this state- 
ment more clear. The cases in which the doctrines of 
a general and a special providence are usually deemed 
most at variance, and the latter is charged by the 
former with presumption and inconsistency — are the 
following: (I.) prayers for help and deliverance; (2.) 
intercession for others ; (3.) expectation of immediate 
peace and joy from repentance and conversion. On 
all these cases I may remark generally at the outset 
— that the sure effect of an earnest self-surrender to 
God, is an accession of strength and insight to all the 
moral and spiritual faculties. New life flows down 
from the Parent Mind into the soul that seeks com- 
munion with Him in filial trust and devotedness — 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



141 



and gives it light to see its way through the darkest 
scenes, and a strength not of this world for the per- 
formance of the hardest service. Our moral relations 
to the universe are revealed to us in the light of God's 
Spirit. We comprehend the requirements of duty by 
the simple wisdom of the heart. It is the right ap- 
preciation of these moral relations, and the faithful 
performance of duties growing out of them, that con- 
stitute the worth and dignity of man as man. We 
may want a scientific view of the world ; we may even 
be ignorant of some of the most important physical 
laws : and yet with a simple, earnest, pious heart, 
singly intent on good, we shall see what we ought to 
do in the narrow sphere of responsibility assigned us, 
and do it well. For light is ever proportionate to re- 
sponsibility. Scientific mistakes, if such we incur, 
will be overruled by moral earnestness, to far higher 
good in the final result, than if with more scientific 
illumination, we had possessed less spirituality of mind 
and integrity of heart. Such conclusions, which find 
a verification in our daily experience, will suggest the 
means of reconciling a special with a general pro- 
vidence. 

A good and pious man, in the fulness of his un- 
doubting faith, prays to God for deliverance from the 
straits of adversity, and implores a blessing on the 
fruits of his labours. ' Help yourself/ says the scorn- 
ful philosopher — 4 and do not weary Heaven with 
your unavailing prayers. The means are in your own 
hand. Use them ; and the effect will follow/ True, 
it will follow ; but its productiveness must be in pro- 
portion to the energy of the will which prompts it, and 



142 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



the clear foresight which guides it to its destined end. 
Such is the union and sympathy of the mental with 
the material world, that a divine influence streams 
out from one upon the other, and floods it with a su- 
perhuman energy. Men become new creatures, when 
they work in conscious harmony with God. They 
detect the secrets of the omnipresent Spirit, and lay 
hold of its hidden springs. An inspiration comes over 
them, whose marvellous effects transcend the dull 
mechanism of worldly routine, and frustrate the selfish 
calculations of worldly prudence. History abounds 
with records of the calm success of men who have 
lived in the spirit of prayer and the power of faith, 
and sought no other wisdom than what they found in 
the promptings of an honest and religious heart. 

The case of intercession is attended with more dif- 
ficulty. Logic forsakes us here. We must look for 
a reason in the religious impulses of our nature. We 
are urged to intercession by feelings which we cannot 
resist. When you part with a daughter to find her 
future home among strangers in a distant land, or 
commit a son for the first time, young and inexperi- 
enced, to the snares and seductions of the great world 
— can you repress a prayer to Heaven for their pre- 
servation from the sorrows and perils with which life 
abounds? No, it goes up to God involuntarily. It 
escapes from your lips before you are aware. You 
could not check it, even if you knew it was sinful. 

3 nJ 

Nature here is mightier than reason, and will have 
her way. And shall we charge the God who made the 
heart, with subjecting it to baseless illusions, because 
we cannot understand the mode in which its holiest 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 143 

petitions will be answered ? We know not the endless 
connections and hidden sympathies that pervade the 
spiritual world; and influence its course. When Na- 
ture's pleading is so universal and so strong, it is suf- 
ficient to see, that it involves nothing impossible or 
absurd. There is oftentimes a faith higher than rea- 
son, on which the devout heart may well repose. A 
pure, unselfish, affectionate and trustful soul, respon- 
sive to the Spirit that watches over all things, and 
shedding the fulness of its tenderest solicitudes on the 
sympathy of the Infinite Heart — may be prolific of 
good to an .extent that we cannot measure, and the 
condition of effects throughout the system of Provi- 
dence, which it is not for us to attempt to trace. In- 
fluences too, within our comprehension, may obviously 
confer a preservative force on intercessory prayer. 
How often may vigilance quickened by devotion, and 
thoughtfulness that has gained deeper insight by com- 
munion with God, anticipate evils and avert dangers 
which an irreligious spirit in its blind apathy would 
have overlooked, or allowed to pass uncorrected ! 
How touching and solemn is the reflection, that those 
whom we love best on earth, and by whom we are most 
purely and tenderly beloved — a sister's gentle spirit or 
a mother's full heart — never address themselves to God 
without a word of holy supplication on our behalf! 
The hour of prayer, when the mind gathers up its 
thoughts from the distractions of the day, and weary 
with the toils of life, craves an interval of rest — is a 
hallowed and blessed time. Distant souls meet then 
in the presence of God, and exchange a silent sym- 
pathy w T hich strengthens their mutual affection, and 



114 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



makes theni unseen a cheek on each other's faithful- 
ness and purity."* 

The promise of immediate blessing to the con- 
verted sinner, is alleged by the philosopher as an- 
other instance of contrariety between the doctrines 
of a special and a general Providence ; and the very 
possibility of such a sudden change of condition is 
denied, as inconsistent vrith the fixed and uniform 
laws by which God administers his moral govern- 
ment. Scripture is quoted as at variance with itself 
on this subject. c God/ says Moses, 'will visit the 
sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third 
and fourth generation of them that hate him/ e Go 
in peace/ says Christ to the sinner, 'thy faith hath 
saved thee/ The Law prolongs the penalty to chil- 
dren's children : the Gospel, on repentance, cuts it off 
in the life of the offender himself. How can both 
these statements represent a truth, and be received 
as the word of God.? Both are, however, true from 
their own point of view. The difference is that of the 
dispensations to which they respectively belong — one 
affecting the outward life — the other, the interior 
condition of the soul. The laws of health and social 
relation, which sin has violated, will hold on their 

* ' — The course of prayer who knows ? 
It springs in silence where it will, 
Springs out of sight, and flows 
At first a lonely rill : 

But streams shall meet it by-and-by 
From thousand sympathetic hearts, 
Together swelling high 

Then chant of many parts.' 

Christian Year. — Monday in Easier TTeeJr. 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 145 



course and bear their penal fruits, often through more 
than one generation; and the inevitable working of 
these laws should he deeply impressed on all men's 
nxinds, and set forth with distinct and emphatic warn- 
ing in every system of education. For it is a terrible 
truth, that repentance, however profound and durable, 
is many times without avail to restore vigour to a 
debilitated constitution, to recruit the fortunes that 
have been prodigally wasted, or to avert from guilt- 
less children the consequences of parental folly and 
crime. Yet it is also true, that the law of mind is 
mightier than all outward laws : and the Gospel justi- 
fies its promise by calling that law of mind into the 
fullest operation. Repentance, indeed, cannot at once 
re-establish health, or bring back an estate, or put a 
family in the same advantageous circumstances in re- 
gard to this world, as they might else have enjoyed; 
and to those who see all things in the light of this 
"world, so remediless an alternative may appear pure 
and unmixed evil. But when the heavenly call has 
been heard and obeyed, and faith has purged the in- 
ner vision of the soul, and will, quickened by a spirit 
from above, has resolutely subjected itself to God's 
law, and duty and the eternal life have become the 
great realities of existence — then the heritage of pe- 
nal suffering, without ceasing outwardly to be such, 
is transformed by an energy which goes forth from 
the mind itself, into a source of spiritual blessing. 
To the converted sinner, and to all who are connected 
with him, it is made a holy and purifying discipline 
— a stimulus to moral progress and an instrument 
of moral power — fraught with trials and difficulties 

H 



146 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

which, under the corrective influence of a religious 
spirit, form the soul to a true virtue, and teach it 
meekness and patience and self-denial and devout 
trust, and breathe into it the tender and sympathizing 
humanity which thousands in the fulness of an outward 
prosperity are not aware that they want. Evil in its 
external aspects is unchanged ; but to the soul its spi- 
ritual relation is reversed. Thus God keeps his word 
under both his covenants. In the life of a true peni- 
tent, the fruits of past wickedness, severed from the 
stock which nourished them, lose their noxious qua- 
lity, and even fatten the soil for the future harvests of 
good. 

The special Providence of God operates on the will, 
conscience, and affection of individual man. These 
will be refractory, dull and cold, or prompt, vigilant 
and full of fervour — converting God's outward visita- 
tions into curses or blessings, as the soul turns itself 
away froru God and repels the infusions of his Spirit, 
or as it seeks Him in the holy earnestness of prayer 
and cherishes its inner life in the bosom of his love. 
The might of a religious spirit over the things of this 
world, is wonderful. There are seasons when its in- 
fluence atones for the natural weakness of reason, and 
replaces all the deficiencies of knowledge. Nor must 
this view be considered as any argument against the 
importance of an increased acquaintance with science. 
It simply affirms, that in the unavoidable absence of 
science, the moral purposes of life may be fully ac- 
complished ; inasmuch as there is a substitute for it 
in the religious nature of man, which abundantly suf- 
fices, under every degree of intellectual light, for his 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 147 

safe and happy guidance. A mind truly devout, as 
soon as it is conscious of ignorance, will seek to dis- 
pel it. To do right according to present knowledge, 
is man's first duty; to extend his means of doing it, 
by more knowledge and wider views of truth, is his 
second. Whatever a conscientious man perceives to 
be a law in the government of God's world, he will 
hold himself bound to obey : and if his piety keep 
pace with his science — if his affections are not chilled 
by doubt, but interpose their warm and genial hues 
as a tempering medium to the clear, cold light that 
streams in upon his intellect — he will g row clav bv 
day into the conviction, that every act he performs, 
every truth he gains, every sentiment he cultivates, 
every aspiration he indulges, in conscious harmony 
with the eternal laws of the universe — is but another 
link to bind his nature in a living bond with God. 
Step by step he will more fully reconcile the demands 
of faith and reason ; and in his ever-widening view 
the doctrines of a general and a special providence will 
be seen finally to coalesce in one. 



h 2 



148 



X. 

THE TRUE EXPRESSION OE HUMAN BROTHER- 
HOOD. 

Matthew xxiii. 8. 
"All ye are brethren." 

There are some emotions which thrill to the very 
depths of the soul. Of such is the consciousness of 
human brotherhood. For power over all the springs 
of holy tenderness, it comes next to the consciousness 
of God. Moments occur in the lives of all of us, 
when we feel, that there is a closer and more enduring 
tie between men, than is indicated by the outward 
relationship of birth and social position — a spiritual 
bond that grows out of the sympathies of the immor- 
tal mind, and cannot be touched by the casualties of 
outward things. The greatest minds are most alive to 
this solemn consciousness. The passages in the poets 
which we remember to have most deeply moved us, 
are such as called it forth in its utmost strength. 
There is a common heart in humanity, and the tears 
start unbidden to our eyes, when the sad or joyous 
realities are vividly presented to us, which are the 
common inheritance of our race. When great prin- 
ciples have made their way in the world, and are ad- 
vancing towards universal acknowledgment, they are 
caught up by the popular sentiment, and not rarely 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 149 



disfigured and exaggerated by undiscnminating fana- 
ticism. There may be, and there actually is, such a 
thing as the cant of human brotherhood. To under- 
stand its claims and feel its blessing, it is important 
to show, what it is not, and what is sometimes put 
forth in place of it. 

The spirit of human brotherhood is not, then, the 
same thing as the spirit of mere democracy. Doubt- 
less there often has been a true heart of humanity in 
strong democratic movements ; but sometimes also 
they have only disguised the efforts of selfishness and 
a vulgar ambition. Human brotherhood not only 
does not demand an equalization of the external con- 
dition of mankind, but is even incompatible with it. 
Dependence and authority are a consequence of the 
different relations which the course of events or ori- 
ginal diversities of power and intelligence inevitably 
establish among men. Society is the sum total of 
these relations : and in the due adjustment of them, 
the realization of human brotherhood consists. It 
may be remarked of all attempts to efface these in- 
equalities of condition, that they can never succeed, 
inasmuch as they thwart the great law of the Divine 
government, which is unity in the midst of diversity ; 
— and further, that they lay the stress of philanthropy 
in the wrong place — on the merely outward in the 
human lot, which it is impossible for laws to fix in 
a particular type — to the neglect of the inward life, 
where a true equality — an equality of worth and hap- 
piness — can alone be found. This observation does 
not, of course, extend to the maintenance of any dis- 
tinctions among men that are exclusive and unjust, 



150 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DITTY. 



■ — or of unequal and oppressive government of any 
kind. All such, evils demand and justify resistance, 
till they are removed. Often it is the natural reac- 
tion against their long endurance, which impels men 
in the first frenzy of a nevr liberty, to aim at forcibly 
introducing a superficial and external equality, de- 
structive of that deeper equality felt in the heart, 
through which alone thev become trulv conscious of 
a common brotherhood. 

The spirit of human brotherhood is not promoted 
bv artificially breaking down those lines of natural se- 
paration in the intercourse of different classes, which 
result inevitably from congeniality of pursuits and in- 
terests, from correspondence in social position, and 
from harmony in manners, tastes and sentiments. The 
folly here is in meddling with the spontaneous opera- 
tions of nature. Left to themselves the different ele- 
ments of society fall easily into their proper places, 
and assume their natural functions, and work peace- 
fully together without any collision — each man happy 
in habitual association with those whom education 
and circumstances have fitted him most readily to 
sympathize with, and enable him best to understand. 
Nor does this view of society justify a spirit of pride 
and exclusiveness. On the contrary, it is the vicious 
predominance of such qualities which produces an in- 
ordinate tendency in the opposite direction. It is the 
presumptuous attempt of cold and haughty natures 
to throw up an artificial barrier between the social 
grades, which disinclines men to recognize the natu- 
ral one. Nothing forced and artificial ever succeeds. 
There is an obvious feeling of propriety in these mat- 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 151 

ters, which a genuine humanity will be content to 
follow. And indeed the truly sympathetic and ac- 
tively benevolent rarely overlook it or protest against 
it. Complaint usually comes from the restless and the 
vain — impatient of the barriers which confine their 
ambition, and hankering for sudden distinction. Is 
there a more valuable class in society than our do- 
mestic servants ? Who have such an influence on our 
daily comfort and happiness ? Who have so strong a 
claim on our sympathy ? Whom are we more bound 
to treat with habitual consideration and courtesy ? — 
Yet it is quite clear, that we should in no wise in- 
crease their happiness or our own, if we were to break 
through the conventional rules of decorum, which 
long experience has ratified, and familiarity were to 
replace the old usage of respectful reserve and friendly 
regard — if they, for instance, were to sit down at ta- 
ble with us, and take a part in the conversation of our 
friends, or we as unreasonably and improperly were 
to obtrude ourselves on their intervals of leisure and 
join the circle of their personal acquaintance. This 
is an extreme case, but it tests the principle. Try it 
in another way. Consider the relations of the middle 
class to the aristocracy. We should feel it very unbe- 
coming and very foolish, to claim admission on terms 
of perfect freedom and familiarity into the society of 
those whose station and mode of life, whose habits 
and ideas, are so widely different from our own : and 
we should certainly resist, as an intolerable imperti- 
nence, any attempt on their part to intrude on our 
privacy, to disturb our natural affinities, and inter- 
rupt our chosen intercourse. Each class best works 



152 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DITTY. 

out its own objects independently, within the limits 
which the constructive organism of Society has thrown 
around it for the protection of its specific agency. 

These remarks apply to constant familiar inter- 
course. There are occasions of a more public nature, 
religious and philanthropic — seasons of national re- 
joicing or periodical festivity — when it is much to be 
wished, that all classes would lay aside their habitual 
reserve, and mingle kindly and cordially with each 
other. But there are manifestations among us of a 
tendency to go far beyond this point, and to level 
everywhere all social distinctions as an infringement 
on the natural rights of man. Whether the preva- 
lence of such a spirit be really conducive to feelings 
of mutual respect and brotherly love between different 
classes, is more than doubtful. Its action wants calm- 
ness. Its obvious sources infuse into it elements of 
unhealthy excitability. " It is produced, partly by in- 
tense disgust at the cold and haughty reserve which 
still too strongly marks the demeanour of the upper 
ranks — partly by the hasty generalizations to which 
first impressions of truth naturally lead among the 
imperfectly educated — and partly by that mixed feel- 
ing of philanthropy and piety which adopts literally 
the doctrines and usages of the first Christians, as 
they are set forth in the Xew Testament, without 
due consideration of the conditions under which Pro- 
vidence has taught us, they are to be applied to the 
present circumstances of mankind. 

The spirit of human brotherhood does not show 
itself in claiming absolutely for every individual of 
every class, a direct share in the political affairs of 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 153 

his country. This may or may not, according to cir- 
cumstances, become a condition of the general wel- 
fare. But much declamation, wholly beside the pur- 
pose, is sometimes vented on this subject by persons 
who would fain have themselves considered as the ex- 
clusive friends of the people. No rale of universal 
application can be laid down. No abstract right can 
be affirmed. No man can claim that as a right, which 
it might be shown would tend, if put indiscriminately 
in practice, to endanger or impede the steady progress 
of society, and consequently to defeat the ultimate 
interest of every class in the state. Eights are not a 
constant quantity in the vast computation of human 
interests, but grow with an uniform increment in pro- 
portion to man's capacity of comprehending and ful- 
filling the duties that are co-ordinate with them. The 
sole object of importance is, the moral development 
of society; — that each class and interest composing 
it, should be so effectually protected and represented, 
as to secure just and impartial government for all — 
no burden unfairly laid — no privileges exclusively con- 
ferred — no monopolies of social advantage and dis- 
tinction permitted to subsist, which keep down any 
class, and prevent its members from attaining the 
consideration and influence to which virtue and talent 
would else entitle them. The present is not a fitting 
occasion to inquire, what may be the best means, 
under the actual circumstances of society, for accom- 
plishing this object. Our business here is with hu- 
manity and religion, not with politics. But it should 
never be forgotten, that the minority of a community 
have rights to be protected, as well as the majority, 

h 3 U 



154 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

The one end of social endeavour should be the attain- 
ment of strict justice and equal law, with free scope 
to industrial and mental development — for all. This 
is the end, the only end worth a serious thought • and 
there is no true humanity, no genuine sympathy with 
man as man, in so working on the feelings of the 
multitude, as to blind them to a perception of the end, 
in a fanatical enthusiasm about some one of the pos- 
sible means of reaching it. 

Lastly, human brotherhood does not consist in pa- 
tronizing the poor. There is something intolerably of- 
fensive in this spirit of affected condescension. Our 
modern philanthropy is not without occasional speci- 
mens of it. The philosophical coldness that keeps aloof 
from all popular movements, yet honours the abstract 
ideal of humanity, devoutly dwelt upon in the visions 
of studious contemplation — is infinitely more respect- 
able and far more deserving of trust. The cant of hu- 
manity always betrays an inward hollowness and lack 
of heart. Men pretend an interest which they do not 
really feel, and put on an air of familiarity which ill 
disguises the spirit of aristocratical insolence harbour- 
ing in the breast. They think how kind and good it 
is, with their refined manners and cultivated minds 
to step down from their elevated position, and mingle 
thus freely and easily in a crowd of ignorant and un- 
polished men. They are profoundly conscious of what 
they are doing. Self is predominant over humanity. 
They fancy all eyes must be upon them — filled with 
admiration at such unheard-of self-sacrifice and con- 
descension. They never dream, that there may be far 
truer and nobler men in the multitude which they so 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 155 

obligingly patronize. Yon may sometimes hear snch 
persons at public meetings employing language — solely 
for the sake of a moment's popularity — which they do 
not and cannot mean with any approach to literal truths 
and which they would think it very hard, if they were 
tied down to carry out consequentially into the whole 
of its legitimate applications. To take them at their 
word, you would suppose they believed that only one 
class in society, and that the lowest, was entitled to 
consideration — and that to it the time and energy and 
resources of all other classes should be exclusively sa- 
crificed. They affect a contempt for the outward ad- 
vantages of their own condition. They disown the 
society in which they habitually move. They profess, 
they have no interest and sympathy except for the poor. 

Now, this exaggerated insincerity vitiates all healthy 
influence over the popular mind at its source. Every 
poor man of plain and unperverted understanding sees 
through such false patronage and hypocritical flattery 
at once. He knows, that this is not the language of 
nature and truth. He puts himself in the place of 
the speaker, and perceives that it cannot spring from 
genuine conviction. He feels his reason and his heart 
alike insulted by a challenge to the confidence of his 
own class, founded on the refusal of sympathy to every 
other class. He asks, why the honourable merchant, 
the benevolent country-gentleman, the upright and pa- 
triotic peer, are to be shut out from his good wishes 
and kindly feeling, simply because the same accident 
of fortune which made him poor, has invested them 
with riches or rank. A better sentiment fills his breast, 
in the remembrance, that they are all men like him- 



156 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



self. He feels, therefore, that the speaker has not hit 
the living point of the matter ■ — that he has come 
down with contempt ill-concealed, to cajole and mis- 
lead those who in outward condition are below him, 
instead of putting forth a brother's sympathy and a 
brother's effort to lift them np into the full conscious- 
ness of inward equality with himself. It is the foulest 
wrong that can be inflicted on the humbler classes, to 
lower their standard of morals, sentiment, cultivation 
and manners, or in any degree diminish their respect 
for the external decencies and refinements of life. — 
Their improvement is only to be effected, by stimu- 
lating them to aspire after a higher condition, and tell- 
ing them plainly, that they must themselves be the au- 
thors of their own respectability. A firm and honest 
adherence to this rule of action, even if it compels the 
occasional utterance of harsh and unpalatable truths, 
is the test of a genuine philanthropy : and he who 
steadily abides by it through good and through evil 
report, will command in the final result the deepest 
respect and trust and the largest influence for good, 
even among those whose short- sighted views and hasty 
impulses he may at times have found it necessary to 
oppose. 

Of kindred nature with the patronizing spirit just 
described, is the obtrusive violation of the poor man's 
home by the insolent fanaticism which assumes to it- 
self a monopoly of religious truth. In contempt of 
his most sacred rights, there are persons bearing the 
name of Christians, who will force themselves in at 
his door, to probe his conscience and take the measure 
of his creed ; — who will not scruple, with the language 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 157 

of peace on their lips, to invade his spiritual freedom 
and upbraid him for an honest exercise of judgment 
in obtaining where best he may, religious light and 
consolation for himself and his children. How differ- 
ent this inquisitorial spirit from the spirit of Christ ! 
That would never let us cross the humblest threshold, 
without a feeling of human love and reverence — with- 
out the solemn thought — c Here dwells a child of God, 
the possessor of a free, responsible, immortal mind/ 
In the presence of humanity every genuine nature is 
touched with a holy veneration, and the vile accents 
of a patronizing condescension die away on the speech- 
less lips. Yrhen the virtuous father of a family stands 
before us, great in native worth of soul, amidst all the 
outward tokens of poverty and an humble calling — - 
what a feeling of honour and sympathy goes forth 
spontaneously from our hearts, to greet that truest ex- 
pression of human respectability ! As we look on his 
honest, open countenance, where no evil passion or 
sinful habit has left its deforming trace, and listen to 
the earnest tones of his manly voice uttering with 
plainness and simplicity the convictions of a genuine 
heart, we are made to feel what is really noble in man. 
It is we, come from what station we may, who are be- 
neath j it is we who have to rise to him. We would 
fain reverse the language of Peter to the prostrate 
Cornelius, and say — e Brother, lift me up from my 
lowness, that I may be wise and pure and content 
like thee/ 

"We have thus shown, what the spirit of human bro- 
therhood is not. Let us now ask, what it is ? TThere 
are we to look for it ? — In reverence for man's moral 



158 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DITTY. 



and spiritual attributes, and in strenuous efforts to 
rouse, protect and develope them. These alone make 
the man. They invest rath a true greatness every 
diversity of outward circumstance ; and wherever they 
find free scope and ample exercise, cherish the inward 
principle of human dignity and happiness. To draw 
out the latent elements of moral and spiritual good in 
the lower classes, requires, it is true, great accompany- 
ing efforts to improve their physical and social condi- 
tion. Only these latter objects should never be re- 
garded as themselves an end. In the eye of a genuine 
philanthropy, they are but means to the attainment 
of a far higher end j— and that end is to unfold the 
entire worth of the inner man — all his heart, all his 
conscience, all his rational and spiritual faculties: A 
process of this kind is not only compatible with great 
diversity of outward condition, but I contend, is even 
promoted by it. The many sides of our common na- 
ture, its endless treasures of goodness and beauty, its 
manifold capacities of noble endurance and heroic ef- 
fort — could never be brought to light, were it not tried 
and tested in the most opposite states of existence, and 
exposed to the utmost variety of external stimulus. A 
forced uniformity of condition would deprive us of 
these rich results. In the great science of society, it 
must be confessed, that we have yet much to learn. 
History records a series of experiments only partially 
successful, at times subsiding into injustice and op- 
pression, and then bursting forth in wild abortive ef- 
forts at communism and outward equality. Yet these 
lessons have not been wholly lost on us. Men's minds 
are now more intent than ever on settling the conditions 



EXPRESSION OE HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 159 

of the great problem, how we are to secure the harmony 
and tranquil progress of the human family. Casting 
off the prejudices inherited from feudal times, we are 
beginning to feel the respect that is due to all honest 
industry, and to perceive that it can only flourish in 
the air of freedom. The important bearing of a pro- 
per adjustment of taxation on the contentment and 
energy of the community, is becoming a general sub- 
ject of reflection and inquiry. Our municipalities are 
directing their attention to the public health and to 
the proper structure and drainage of the dwellings of 
the poor. The demand for universal education of a 
higher order is already a popular cry, and likely to 
swell into a popular enthusiasm .„ Many and increasing 
are the opportunities offered to every class in all our 
great towns, for the acquisition of knowledge and the 
cultivation of refined and rational tastes. Not a few 
are the incitements (would they were greater ! ) to the 
accumulation of property, and even to the investment 
of it ; in land. Small properties extensively ramified 
among the working class — the realized fruit of their 
forethought and industry — would tend above every- 
thing to pervade society with a spirit of healthful 
conservatism, and, like the attenuated fibres which 
the tap-root of the oak sends out far and wide into 
the soil, help to sustain, erect and firm, the venerable 
trunk and springing branches of our time-honoured 
constitution. Such are the movements which the 
spirit of human brotherhood dwells on with profound- 
est complacency and the most cheering anticipations. 
Material and secular in their outward aspect, they are 
the conditions and precursors of the loftiest moral ad- 



160 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

vancement. Spiritual men must step forth to wel- 
come and aid them, and by the fearless preaching of 
a rnanly, earnest and truthful religion, breathe into 
them a higher aim and make them subserve a nobler 
purpose. 

Taking our stand on the vantage-ground of these 
great efforts of social reform, let it be our first object 
to multiply the number of virtuous and happy homes. 
The domestic hearth is the seed-plot of a noble and 
flourishing commonvrealth. All laws are vicious, ail 
tendencies are to be deprecated, which increase the 
difficulty of diffusing through every rank, the refined 
and holy influences which are cherished by the do- 
mestic affections, Heckless speculation among capi- 
talists, disturbing the steady and uniform course of 
employment — and its sure counterpart, improvidence 
and debauchery among workmen — are the deadliest 
foes of the household virtues. In how small a coin- 
pass lie all the elements of man's truest happiness, if 
society were only conducted in a rational and mode- 
rate spirit, and its members of every class could be 
restrained from vicious indulgence and the pursuit of 
phantoms ! A marriage contracted with thoughtful- 
ness and cemented by pure and faithful love, when a 
fixed position is gained in the world, and a small fund 
has been already accumulated — hard work and frugal 
habits at the commencement of domestic life to meet 
in time the possible demands of a future family — a 
dwelling comfortably furnished, clean, bright, salu- 
brious and sweet — children well trained and early 
sent to school — a small collection of good books on 
the shelves — a few blossoming plants in the window 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 



161 



— some well-selected engravings on the walls — a piano, 
it may be, a violin or a flute to accompany the family 
concert — -home made happy in the evening by cheer- 
ful tasks and mutual improvement, exchanged at times 
for the conversation of friend or neighbour of kindred 
taste and congenial manners — these are conditions of 
existence, within reach of every one who will seek them 
— resources of the purest happiness lost to thousands, 
because a wrong direction is given to their tastes and 
energies, and they roam abroad in pursuit of interest 
and enjoyment which they might create in rich abun- 
dance at home. This is no romantic, visionary picture. 
It is a sober, accessible possibility, such as even now, 
under the pressure of many adverse circumstances, is 
realized in the homes of not a few working-men who 
have learned the art of extracting competence from 
narrow means, and maintaining genuine respectability 
in a humble station. 

If this truer estimate of the value and honour of 
life were more generally entertained among mankind 
— the gradations of rank and the differences of social 
position — even those which are most strongly marked, 
and the favourite objects of rhetorical invective — would 
only bring more clearly into view, through the con- 
trasted diversities of its outward manifestation, that 
inward worth of the universal soul which is the bond 
of human brotherhood. WJiere all is planed down to 
one dead level of external equality, or where the ac- 
cident of suddenly acquired wealth constitutes the only 
social distinction — it may be questioned, whether the 
spirit of genuine humanity is more deeply felt, and 
whether there is a less frequent exhibition of coarse 



162 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

and brutal selfishness, than where the intercourse of 
man with man is to some extent confined and regu- 
lated by those lines of demarcation between different 
ranks, which have grown out of the historical antece- 
dents of an old country, and so far from indicating a 
slavish spirit, are consistent with the highest feelings 
of mutual courtesy and individual self-respect. A vir- 
tuous and intelligent working-class, exempt alike from 
rudeness and servility, must react with beneficial effect 
on the moral condition of the higher ranks, and bring 
them more under the salutary restraint of public opi- 
nion : and an aristocracy, that without stepping af- 
fectedly out of its sphere or renouncing its ancient 
traditions, still founds its influence on its virtues, 
and bears itself respectfully and courteously to all 
men, may be the means of diffusing a refinement of 
manners and an elevated tone of sentiment through 
all the classes which are ranged beneath it. 

But how childish — how far below the proper aim 
of every humane and thoughtful mind — is this invi- 
dious comparison of rank with rank — of one outward 
condition of men and brethren with another ! One 
feels a kind of shame in even alluding to the subject. 
The very entertainment of it seems to betray a little 
and a selfish soul. How often must we be reminded, 
that we are all members of God's great family ! That 
we have all been placed where we are by his wisdom ! 
That we have all one common heritage of duties and 
trials, temptations and griefs — none spared affliction, 
because they are high — none shut out from blessing, 
because they are low ! And that, when this short 
scene of earth has passed away, all must alike give 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 163 

account of the trust confided to them, at that solemn 
tribunal — where the lady who now wears the diadem 
of these realms, and the humblest daughter of poverty 
and toil, will bow their heads and bend their knees, 
side by side, before the Father and Judge of all ! If 
all hearts were laid open — if the secrets of all homes 
from the palace to the cottage were exposed to view 
— there would, doubtless, be found a more equitable 
balancing of human conditions — a far more impartial 
allotment of the means of human happiness — than the 
superficial aspect of things seems to indicate. Look 
where you will, to the highest or the lowest estate — 
let the disparity of outward circumstances be as great 
as can be conceived — you will ever observe lawless de- 
sires, ungovernable appetites and ill- disciplined feel- 
ings, pride, discontent, envy, hatred and selfishness — 
pursuing their victim through every social region with 
the same deep sense of incurable misery, which no 
splendour and luxury can evade, and the heaviest pri- 
vations of poverty cannot aggravate. On the other 
hand, the pure, kind, trustful, devout heart, intent on 
duty and only ambitious of usefulness — wherever its 
scene of action be cast — bears in the beaming eye and 
open brow and gladsome voice, unfailing evidence of 
inward peace and joy. 

The true beauty of humanity lies all within, and is 
rendered more conspicuous by the very diversity of 
its outward garb. The contrast strikes the eye, and 
goes to the heart. How often in surveying the great 
man's splendid mansion and wandering through his 
ancient woods and beautiful gardens — have we met 
with some touching memorial of human affection — - 



164 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



some record of friend or child or partner taken away 
— some sculptured urn or votive tablet commemora- 
tive of loves or triumphs or griefs, fast fading in the 
distant past — which affectingly reminded us, that here 
in the very midst of this princely magnificence, hearts 
like our own once throbbed to the common joy and 
sorrow of our race ! And so, when we quit our own 
comfortable, perhaps luxurious, homes to visit the sick 
or dying bed of some poor and virtuous neighbour — 
and mark, how deep is the trust, how calm the hope, 
how sweet and holy the affection, how delicate and 
tender the attentions — which bring their soothing mi- 
nistrations to the pain and faintness of yielding na- 
ture, and transform that lowly room into an outer 
court of the world of light — the very change in the 
associated circumstances makes the truth and reality 
of those blessed influences more perceptible to us, and 
imprints what is best in our common humanity with 
a deeper love and reverence on our hearts. 

It is possible, that the influences of universal edu- 
cation, a growing respect for all useful labour, and a 
readier command by every class of the means of do- 
mestic comfort and culture, may in time diffuse so 
general a refinement of mind and manners through 
all ranks, as imperceptibly to efface the social distinc- 
tions which now exist, and render possible a literal 
fulfilment of the most enthusiastic visions of human 
brotherhood : and perhaps the strongest reason that 
can be alleged for not violently destroying our present 
restrictions, is a conviction, that they are a needful 
preparation for the ultimate change, and afford the 
safest and surest means of a gradual transition. — In 



EXPRESSION OP HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 



165 



the meantime, let not the barriers of separation be- 
tween different ranks be so impassable, as to obstruct 
a free passage for any who are qualified to ascend, 
from a lower to a higher sphere. — To exclude them 
by any artificial test of creed or race, is an odious 
tyranny. Let them rise. They are the born aris- 
tocracy of heaven. Nevertheless we are continually 
brought back to the great truth, which every aspect 
of society illustrates and confirms, that humanity, in 
all situations, must draw its strength and blessing from 
itself . Wherever on this earth an understanding is 
active to know and serve the truth — wherever a heart 
beats with kind and pure and generous affections— 
wherever a home spreads its sheltering wing over hus- 
band and wife and parent and child — there under every 
diversity of outward circumstance, the true worth and 
dignity and peace of man's soul are within reach of 
all. To that high and honourable position of self- 
dependence, rich in exhaustless treasures of inward 
happiness, — let us put forth every effort and use ail 
our influence to raise up step by step the down-trodden 
and grovelling multitudes of our fellow-men. 



166 



XL 

FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 

Maek v. 36. 
"Be not afraid, only believe." 

Christ bore into human hearts the strong conviction 
of a Divine presence, and made men feel the invisible 
Keality that was ever working within them and around 
them. This was the faith which put forth a virtue for 
the moral healing of the soul and the tranquillizing 
of its doubts and fears. Death had overshadowed 
with his cold eclipse the late bright and happy home 
of Jairus. His beloved child lay stretched in pale un- 
consciousness. All eyes were streaming with tears ; 
and the voice of comfortless woe was heard in his 
chambers. Suddenly the calm benignity of Christ ap- 
pears in the midst of the mourners — rebuking their 
want of faith and unaffected by their scorn. It falls 
like sunshine on the darkened heart of the parent, 
and the tumult of his grief is hushed at the soothing 
words — ' Be not afraid, only believe/ 

On this as on other occasions, the words elicited 
from Christ by the ordinary casualties of our terres- 
trial existence, bring into view some great spiritual 
principle, and betray the deep fund of eternal truth 
that lay hid in his inmost soul. We learn here the 



FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL, 



167 



power and effect of faith. It puts us into the con- 
sciousness of a divine presence, and dispels all fear. 
" Be not afraid, only believe." How mighty is this 
power ! "When it descends into the heart's depths — 
a pure and genuine efflux of the spirit of God — it 
makes ail the difference between a life of cheerful 
blessedness and a life of gloomy submission or trem- 
bling anxiety. Here are two men — beholding the face 
of the same universe, swept along by the same resist- 
less tide of circumstances, possessors of the same de- 
sires, affections and capacities. And yet how different 
is their mental state, produced by reflection on the 
same phenomena ! One sees in them ultimate facts, 
beyond which he knows nothing and can divine no- 
thing. There they are. — Whence they come— why 
they are there — what they are leading to — is to him a 
dark, impenetrable mystery. For himself, his whole 
creed is shut up in two words — existence and non- 
existence. Yesterday he was nothing ; to-day, he is \ 
to-morrow, he will be nothing again. He looks on 
the countenance of the world ; but to him it is a 
blank. He can trace its outline ; and number its fea- 
tures ; and give the form and measure of its material 
constituents • but he reads no expression there — no 
indication of latent mind, The broad eye of heaven 
beams with no intelligence to him. To him no glow 
of benevolent affection is revealed in the mantling 
blush of fruits and flowers, that suffuses the cheek of 
earth. He feels no silent influence of parental love 
in the warm breath of life that circulates around him, 
and pulsates in the springing germ and in the free 
and happy movement of every beast and bird and 



168 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



creeping tiling. To him all is law, mechanism, mys- 
terious force — no more. Such is man's ultimate con- 
sciousness, when faith is struck out of it. 

The other beholds the same face, but perceives also 
its significance. He reads and interprets its benig- 
nant expression. He discerns the wonderful intellect 
and the deep heart of love that imprint their influ- 
ence on all the features of the universe. He ac- 
cepts the sympathy that is proffered him, and gives 
himself up to it in full reliance on a higher Mind. 
The warm hue of benevolence which is shed over 
creation, suffices for his genial trust, though the scat- 
tered shades which chequer it, may be inexplicable. 
He concludes, that they have a purpose though un- 
known to him. He enjoys the special blessing of all 
good hearts — that he can put confidence in unex- 
plained intentions, when kindness and benevolent 
forethought have been habitually experienced. As 
we trust the long-tried affection of a human friend, 
when for reasons satisfactory to him, he now and then 
withholds from us his ultimate purposes ; — so pious 
souls, acquiescing in ignorance, and conscious of ab- 
solute dependence on the Parent-Mind, dissolve their 
fears and their doubts in perfect faith. They rest in 
the firm assurance, that God both can and will do 
what is best. Faith is the joy and support of their 
being — the sunshine which fills their breasts. — So 
different in their effect on man's whole life, are the 
admission and the denial of a benevolent Intelligence 
in the government and working of the world, 

Some faith is inevitable from the constitution of 
our minds, though it may not have a sovereign Intel- 



FAITH j THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 



169 



lect for its object. All men form expectations and act 
upon them, for which they can give no reason. The 
succession of the seasons, with the varying propor- 
tions of day and night as the latitude recedes from 
the equator — the ebb and flow of the tides — the in- 
tervention of eclipses — and the recurrence of periodi- 
cal winds — are facts on which every one relies with 
perfect confidence. He would be thought a mad- 
man who hesitated to calculate on them, in laying out 
his future course. Yet no one can prove, why the 
planetary system, on whose movements these pheno- 
mena depend, must keep for ever the course which it 
has hitherto pursued, and why a change may not take 
place in it tomorrow. Or if there are grounds which 
seem to justify a trust in the perpetuity of the present 
order of things, they will be found on examination to 
be moral grounds — our reliance on the wisdom and 
goodness of the Supreme Mind. And this inference 
carries us at once into the sphere of religious faith, 
and shows how naturally the lowest and simplest of 
our mental instincts runs up into a spiritual affection. 
In some men faith never rises above this primary in- 
stinct — that unconscious reliance on the future, which 
is indispensable to all connected and prospective ac- 
tion. It discerns the consecutive sequences of mate- 
rial things, but apprehends not the higher idea, indi- 
cative of mind, which results from a comprehensive 
survey of the entire circle of their harmonious rela- 
tions. The faith which soars above the range of 
mere scientific laws, must carry human analogies into 
the organism of the world, and have its source in the 
affections and moral sentiments. It must spring from 

i 



170 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

a spontaneous sympathy with the wisdom and the love 
which are the hidden soul of all material operations 
and float around us as a spiritual reality, responsive 
to the human heart from the deep heart of the uni- 
verse. Hence the close dependence of religious faith 
on our moral condition and the supremacy of con- 
science. Low-thoughted selfishness, vicious appetites, 
and woridly anxieties limit the vision of the soul to 
the material laws which revolve in narrow cycles round 
the centre of our personal existence, and directly in- 
fluence the sources of our individual gratification or 
importance. Under such restraints, there can of course 
be no wid.e-extended sympathies, no breadth of view 
adequate to embrace the significance of that benig- 
nant expression which characterizes the largest as- 
pects of the universe. There may indeed be a profes- 
sion of religion ; but there can be no living, genuine 
faith, — only some cold, traditional semblance of it, 
veiling perhaps a hollow heart and a barren selfish- 
ness. 

The first condition, then, of a true faith is the free 
surrender of our minds to what we feel to be the so- 
vereign law of all moral being — as revealed by con- 
science within, expressed in the lives of prophets, saints, 
and sages without, and reflected with concentrated 
brightness from the glorious personality of Christ. It 
will grow and gather strength from hearty concurrence 
with all the requirements of that divine law — from 
generous self-abandonment to all high purposes, all 
noble impulses, all pure affections, and every work 
and word of brave, earnest, and faithful love. We 
thus put ourselves on the side of God, and open our 



FAITH j THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 171 

hearts to his inspiration. We ally ourselves with the 
Power that sways the course of events. So far as 
our energies will reach, we put ourselves on the side 
of God's holiness and God's strength. As far as our 
insight will carry us, we ally ourselves with God's 
wisdom and God's truth. What mind is there within 
the circuit of Christian influences, that has not at 
some moment or other felt this strong impulse to- 
wards God? It is the solemn crisis — the turning- 
point— of our human destiny, when God calls to us 
from on high, and perhaps will never caH again. 
Happy he, who listens and obeys. Happy he, who 
throws himself with all his energy and affection into 
the course which God opens before him. If he pur- 
sues it, he has got the earnest of salvation. — From 
that small seed of incipient faith a mighty and en- 
during trust will grow. Conscience will set her seal 
on the purpose taken. Experience will confirm and 
ratify the suggestions of a pure heart, and fix and 
deepen their influence. God will reward the confi- 
dence reposed in Him, by the infusion of a deeper 
trust and a holier love. Love will become predomi- 
nant in the mind. All things will be read and inter- 
preted in its light. Fear will, be overpowered and 
expelled, and the dark shades that lingered under its 
influence, will pass away. Man's life will undergo a 
change like that in the family of J aims, healed by the 
presence of the Son of God, — when grief and the fear 
of death vanished at his approach. 

Fear not, thou who believest — for this faith over- 
cometh the world. Realize to thyself the power and 
glory and beauty that must inhere in Infinite Mind. 

i 2 



172 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

Judge from the faint rudiments of mental excellence 
in the wise and virtuous of earth, what must be its 
absolute perfectness in God. Thou hast confidence 
in many a human soul ; and were its strength and in- 
sight equal to its love, thy confidence would be c perfect 
and entire, wanting nothing/ And hast thou less con- 
fidence in God, the Parent-Mind — that exhaustless 
source of good, from whose inspiration have flowed 
all those sweet and pure and generous affections which 
cause thee to repose with undoubting trust on the 
bosom of thy friend? Cherish, then — but on far 
higher grounds — the same blessed trust in God. By 
upright endeavour and holy aspiration put thyself into 
harmony with His spirit ; and thy doom is sealed for 
bliss. Thou wilt bear about with thee a charmed life^ 
whose inner peace the sorest evils of this life cannot 
reach. Sometimes doubts and apprehensions will 
haunt the mind in its searchings for truth, as if truth 
were but a name, and the thoughts of the wise were 
spent in the chase of shadows. But thou, Christian, 
hast no such fear. Thou dwellest in the presence of 
the living God. Thou knowest, that principle — - 
grounded in the eternal laws of mind and emanating 
from the unchangeable essence of God — cannot perish. 
Thou knowest, come what may, the light of truth 
cannot be put out. Thou knowest, that Virtue can 
never be despoiled of its deathless crown, and that 
Love will always bloom in unfading beauty. There- 
fore art thou at rest in the depths of thine own soul, 
though for a season the outer world crumble into 
ruins, and its order and harmony be trodden under 
foot. 



FAITH; THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL, 



173 



Faith lifts us to the conception of an ideal, faintly 
discernible through the endless vista of immortal 
mind — which the actual life of man, even in its best 
and happiest state, never realizes. The Present is 
but the infancy of a more glorious Future, slowly un- 
folding itself in the vast counsels of the Almighty. 
Trust in the final realization of that fair ideal, is our 
best consolation under the disappointments which so 
constantly mock our sanguine expectations of earthly 
good. Be not disquieted, when the course of events 
runs most counter to the wishes of the virtuous and 
the wise, and seems to frustrate the issue that might 
have been looked for from the general tendencies of 
Providence. You want depth of insight and compre- 
hensiveness of vaew, to embrace the vast compass and 
endless ramifications of the divine ways. Think, 
what an atom is this planet — and what a point is ail 
its history — in those abysses of space and time which 
embosom it ! And if there be a Mind, perfect through 
its infinity, which enfolds and penetrates all things — 
how are we, whose mental vision cannot grasp the 
universal and the absolute, competent to measure 
His purposes, or to perceive what is ultimately best 
for that boundless range of influences and complexity 
of events of which He has the disposal ? Raise your- 
selves to the height of this great thought, and have 
peace. Let the consciousness of your own ignorance, 
in view of the infinite Intelligence, fill you with ac- 
quiescence and trust. 

Only in the light of this sublime faith, can the 
history of our race be read without despondency. We 
profess to believe in the progress of the human species ; 



174 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

and if we embrace large spaces of time, and look at 
the average result of events, experience justifies our 
faith. Yet, as respects any visible fruit in this world, 
the labours and self-sacrifices of noble-minded indi- 
viduals and even the efforts of energetic and virtuous 
communities, seem often of little account in the eye 
of God. In that long and varied chronicle of the 
past, what records occur, page after page, of hopeless 
ruin and unmerited suffering — of civilization for ever 
extinguished, and of freedom after all its struggles 
finally trodden out of existence by its remorseless 
foes ! Where are the living, faiths and breathing 
literatures — harmonious utterances of a nations in- 
most soul, — that once gave animation and character 
to wide regions of the East, now surrendered to sloth 
and ignominy ? What has become of the magnificent 
cities, the busy harbours, the thronged roads, the 
crowded schools and churches of many tracts in Asia 
and Africa, where arts and industry once reigned— 
where letters and philosophy found a favoured seat — 
where learned and holy men, the mental progenitors 
of our Christian civilization, impregnated with a purer 
spirit the faith and manners of their contemporaries ? 
Gone — perished — swept away, as by the angel of deso- 
lation, from the face of the earth — a few lonely ruins, 
where wild beasts and the roving herdsman seek a 
shelter from the heat, the sole traces of their former 
existence. Few things strike the spirit with a deeper 
sorrow, than the spectacle of so many virtuous but 
abortive efforts to establish justice and freedom in the 
earth. That glorious promise of constitutional liberty 
in the early history of many European nations — how 



FAITH ^ THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 175 

was it crushed in its opening germ by calamitous ac- 
cidents, and buried beneath a weight of priestly and 
regal despotism, under which it has never blossomed 
again ! Why were the brave burghers of Spain, an- 
ticipating England itself in their noble efforts to plant 
freedom on a municipal and representative basis — 
permitted to be overpowered and brought under a 
senile yoke ? — Is the day of promise passed, never 
more to return ? On a survey of this sad experience, 
fear seizes us, when we look at Europe now. Are 
despotic force and frantic revolution always to share 
the earth in terrible alternation between them ? Do 
the voice of the wise, and the arm of the brave, and 
the blood of the patriot, go for nothing in the wild 
conflict that is desolating the earth ? Shall ancient 
nationalities and the long precedent of noble histories 
be extinguished by the cold-blooded treachery and 
selfishness, which counts human rights as so many 
words on paper, that may be effaced by the stroke of 
a pen ? Yea, efforts that sprang from the purest 
philanthropy — that struck off the fetters of the slave 
and paid the price of his emancipation — even these 
have failed to realize as yet the generous hope in 
which they were conceived, and only reinforce the 
mournful truth, that good in this world is not always 
the overt and immediate fruit of good. 

What should be the effect of this afflictive retro- 
spect on our minds ? Despair — and sluggish fear — 
and the passive relinquishment of the world to the 
power of evil ? Oh no ; it is precisely in cases such 
as these, that faith comes up to our aid and puts 
courage into the heart, where but for it we should be 



176 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

paralysed with hopeless sorrow. We must strive to 
anticipate the thought of God, and more widely ge- 
neralize our views, and not let partial and insulated 
results disconcert and oppress us. We must tran- 
quillize our minds with the aspect of that solemn 
eternity which shuts in our earthly life on every side, 
and reflect on the possible issues to present events that 
may be preparing for all human souls in its impene- 
trable bosom. From the actual which surrounds us, 
we must ascend to the ideal which faith permits us to 
conceive. We must live in the mind, and see, as it 
were, with the eye of the all-seeing God ; — not, how- 
ever, to forego the responsibilities of our own free- 
will, or to become dreamy and helpless visionaries — 
but to gain a firmer resolve and a clearer insight, to 
hope on, when all human power seems against us — to 
preserve unweakened our trust in great principles, and 
to maintain still, calmly and undauntedly, the battle 
for truth and right. Such a faith and such fruits of 
faith, bring their own reward. God may not allow us 
to have any visible part in the redemption of the 
world from its wrongs : but we shall at least have 
thrown our contribution of influence — such as it was 
— into that great stream of tendency which is ever ac- 
cumulating against the strongholds of falsehood and 
injustice, and must in time bring them down. In the 
conflict with evil, we shall have purified and blessed 
our own souls, and transmitted a lesson of virtue 
to future generations. ' Be not afraid, then, only 
believe. 5 

Again, fear not for yourselves and for your worldly 
condition — whatever changes may overtake you, and 



FAITH ^ THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 177 

however yon may sink in wealth and station, if these 
things be not the just consequences of your own folly 
and perverseness. Then indeed they are penalties, 
and must be borne as such. But if otherwise, see 
rather an appointment of mercy in whatever happens, 
and take it as it was sent. You will thus, by your 
own mental energy, transform it into good. Faith 
will give you strength to meet new duties, and master 
all your difficulties. It will come over you with in- 
vigorating effect, like a breath from God himself, when 
you pour out your soul in the morning prayer, and 
look forward to the trials and toils of the coming day. 
Consider what your circumstances require, and man- 
fully accommodate yourself to them. Do right. Wait 
on God, Ally yourself with his providence, and 
trust in Him. Resolution and effort will rise up to 
the demand of all your wants. As yet you cannot 
tell, what a blessing may be hidden for you in this 
adversity. For while the providence of God seems 
often, to the outward eye, irretrievably adverse in the 
case of nations, — individuals, under the heaviest mis- 
fortunes that may overwhelm their country or their 
time, have always the power through vigour of mind 
and moral faithfulness, to extricate and raise them- 
selves. Amid the wreck of states — in an age strewed 
with ruins — noble souls will still rear their heads un- 
touched; — as plants whose roots survive under huge 
and tumbled fragments of antique masonry, creep out 
into the light and climb the highest projections, and 
wreath with their bright festoons of leaf and flower, 
the incumbent mass that has crushed all grosser ma- 
terials into dust. It is a glorious fact, that in the 

i 3 



178 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OE FAITH AND DUTY. 

deepest of this world's depressions, one individual has 
often by strong faith and virtuous effort, exerted a vast 
redeeming influence over the condition of society. 
Think of this, ye whose hearts are ready to fail, and 
it will keep you from despair, and fill you with fresh 
energy for every struggle and endeavour it may be 
needful to sustain. Were such a faith more general, 
states could not fall. It is the want of faithful, noble- 
minded individuals that brings states to ruin. Even 
then, when all the glory of the world has perished, 
and nothing remains but submission to the over- 
powering force of circumstances — peace and blessing 
may be found within — in the sanctuary of the heart, 
where affection nestles, and right principles have still 
a refuge, and the spirit of God is ever present to 
counsel and to cheer. Never is virtue left without 
sympathy — sympathy dearer and tenderer for the 
misfortune that has tried it and proved its fidelity. 
What is sweeter than the sympathy of the true- 
hearted few who honour us for what we are, and will 
not forsake us, because the world has cast us off ? 
Nay, if we are left all alone, what is sweeter than the 
silent sympathy of God, and the peace of our own 
thoughts ? That Divine Friend abideth with the pure 
in heart for ever. 6 Be not afraid, only believe/ 

Lastly, fear not death. There where knowledge 
ceases, faith should strongest prove. If you have 
truly believed in God, you will feel, that death only 
remits you more entirely into his power; and that 
conviction should give you peace. If death were a 
resolution into nothingness — the extinction of the 
mysterious force which has held together in vital 



FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 1 79 

union for a brief sum of years, a few particles of dust 
— you might then give way to fear, or gloomy resig- 
nation be your only alternative. But though you com- 
prehend not death with all its consequences — this at 
least you know, that it gives you back into the hands 
of the living God— that God, whom you have found, 
when you have sought Him with ail your heart, al- 
ways accessible and ever near — and who will not 
abandon you, when more than ever you need his sup- 
port — when you relinquish your hold of all that you 
have clung to on earth, and go to Him alone, with 
whom is lodged the unsearchable disposal of your fu- 
ture doom. Faith only discerns and grasps the invisi- 
ble realities of the future life. Hold up her lamp and 
look Death calmly in the face — that last unfailing 
messenger from God, who brings up the solemn pro- 
cession of our mortal years, as one after another they 
rise out of the dark depths of the future, and flit 
across the present scene, and vanish away in the dim, 
dissolving past. When the shade deepens on your 
descending way — when the eye grows dim — when the 
hands tremble and the knees fail — when the murmurs 
of the receding world die faintly on the ear — when 
friends look on you with an expression of tenderer 
love, as though they might never look on you again 
— then know that the hour of your departure draw- 
eth nigh, and commend your sinking spirit to God. 
He will hear you if you call upon Him then, and 
stretch forth a Father's arm to bear you up in the 
awful moment of transition. 6 Be not afraid ; then as 
ever, only believe/ 



180 



XII. 

THE SPIRIT OE THE COMMANDMENTS AND THE 
SPIRIT OE LIFE. 

Matthew xix. 17. 
" If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. 55 

In their original utterance these words — 'life' and 
'commandments' — must have been understood as 
they were doubtless meant, in an outward sense ; — ■ 
the former referring to the expected kingdom of the 
Messiah, and the latter denoting the positive moral 
law contained in the decalogue or deduced from it. 
They conveyed the idea of something to be done for 
something to be gained — the idea of a task and of a 
reward. Such an idea was in accordance with an 
elementary conception of human relations to God. 
Anything more refined and spiritual could in that 
age hardly have taken effect on the actual condition 
of opinion. But the idea lay open to the perversion — 
that the service and the recompense, in other words, 
the condition and the result — did not grow out of 
the original constitution of the universe, but were ap- 
pointed by the arbitrary will of the Sovereign Ruler, 
simply to express his absolute authority or illustrate 
his gratuitous mercy. Und.er this form the idea passed 
into the Christian Church, and reached in the course 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 181 



of centuries, the furthest limits of fanatical extrava- 
gance. In the middle ages, the notions of ecclesiasti- 
cal perfection — all the qualities that were believed to 
make up the character of a saint — receded to the 
greatest distance from the natural morality of the 
conscience and the heart. Separation from human 
affections and domestic charities' — abstinence from in- 
nocent enjoyments — the renunciation of useful acti- 
vity and healthful interests— such was the discipline 
imposed by the Church on her chosen servants, to free 
their souls from the pollutions of a state that lay 
under its Makers curse, and to fit them for imme- 
diate entrance on the joys of heaven. Earth and hea- 
ven were contradictions in the scheme of Providence : 
the fruition of one involved the surrender of the other. 
Earth's blessings were not to be relished — scarcely to 
be used. The pilgrim must hasten through them with 
fear and trembling, lest in tarrying his robe should 
contract some stain that would exclude him from the 
choirs of the blessed. 

We can see a reason for this intense distrust of the 
world, when the Gospel was first preached. It was 
the natural reaction of pure and fervent minds, in 
which the religious element had burst forth with a 
new life — against the profound corruption, the all- 
pervading carnality and worldliness of the heathen 
civilization. Without so sharp a distinction of the 
ideas of heaven and earth — so vivid a presentiment of 
the contrast between them — the new Religion would 
never have broken the moral torpor of the world, or 
begun its great work of spiritualizing the souls of 
men. But every general impulse has a tendency to 



182 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

run into excess. One element of human error, though 
inseparable perhaps from divine truth on its first an- 
nunciation, and even necessary to its rapid and exten- 
sive reception — will swell into disproportionate mag- 
nitude unless carefully checked, and perpetuate itself 
far beyond the period when it could be of any col- 
lateral service in the moral renovation of the world. 
The brutal sensuality and bloodthirstiness, the stoic 
pride and cold-hearted ambition, against which the 
saints and martyrs of the ancient Church set up the 
protest of their warning voice and ascetic example, 
are now — thanks to the principles which they diffused ! 
gradually dying out over the whole civilized world. 
Juster views of life's duties and of human rights and of 
intercourse among nations, are silently making their 
way against old prejudices and old interests. The 
triumph of the commercial over the warlike spirit — 
the deepening cry for the total abolition of slavery — 
the unceasing diffusion of education — the silent power 
of the press — and those wonderful means of rapid lo- 
comotion and instantaneous communication of thought 
between the remotest points on the surface of the 
globe — are all creating a vast chasm between ancient 
and modern societies, which demands an altered treat- 
ment and application of the traditional doctrines of 
Religion, to adjust them to the new point of view 
from which they must now be surveyed. 

The arts of peace, wide mental culture, especially 
the prosecution of physical science, and the accumu- 
lation of material riches, are the objects to 'which the 
energies of mankind are in this age especially di- 
rected ; and if these are attended by temptations and 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 183 



clangers of their own, they are also giving birth to 
a new class of virtues of no mean or ignoble aim. 
When men are conscious, that they are fulfilling in 
the highest sense their duty to God and their fellow- 
creatures, by the vigorous application of all their 
powers to develope the varied resources of human well- 
being and happiness — it is an unmeaning cant and 
hypocrisy, store to disgust many honest and right- 
minded men and to alienate them from all Religion — 
to call upon them in language, adapted to a very dif- 
ferent condition of mind, to renounce all care and in- 
terest for the present world, and to fix their whole 
souls on that invisible state, which the most spiritual 
minds find so much difficulty in realizing, and which 
is most easily conceived, as the development and com- 
pletion of aims and efforts honourably pursued on 
earth. As man^s nature opens under the manifold 
stimulants of an advancing civilization, it will no 
more be satisfied with phrases, but insist on realities. 
The verbal decisions of the past will no longer suffice 
for its contentment. We must put the interpretation 
of our own awakened consciences and quickened in- 
tellects, on the great principles of faith and duty trans- 
mitted to us by Christ ; and in the life and the com- 
mandments of which he spake in the text, we must 
find a deeper and more spiritual meaning, than it was 
competent for that first age to draw out of his words. 

This remark must not be misunderstood. I would 
not sublimate the primitive essence of Christian truth, 
to condense it again in some concrete form of mo- 
dern philosophy. To all such spiritual alchemy I am 
wholly opposed. The gospel message bears with it 



184 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



through all ages an imperishable soul of faith and 
love, though clothed with ever-changing forms in its 
ceaseless transmigration from one state of human so- 
ciety to another ; and in the living power of that soul, 
as revealed in the words and acts of Christ, I would 
ever seek the inner principle of those new duties which 
rise upon us with higher claims as humanity pursues 
its onward course. The one eternal object of the gos- 
pel, prepared by Hebrew prophets and heathen sages, 
consummated in Christ, and from age to age renewed 
by the holy men who have inherited his spirit — is to 
bring us back from our wanderings in folly, selfishness 
and sin, to God, our Father ; to unite our hearts and 
wills in living communion with Him ; and to incite 
us through the impulse of a strong and transforming 
affection to work freely, trustfully, and rejoicingly in 
and with and for Him alone. This is the true gospel 
of Christ — e the same yesterday, today, and for ever/ 
From this point of view all our duties must be esti- 
mated, and the measure taken of our loftiest and re- 
motest hopes. 

What does the gospel, so understood, demand of 
us ? It calls upon us, as free and intelligent beings, 
to work with the Sovereign Spirit of wisdom and love. 
That is real virtue. Nothing else can put us in a 
right relation towards God. But God is our Father. 
So regarding Him, we cannot suppose Him to will 
gratuitous suffering; and the whole structure and 
tendency of his creation may satisfy us, that we have 
not erred in this a priori conception of His design. 
Mysterious in parts, it is clearly beneficent in its 
leading purpose and general result. The worst evils 



THE SPIRIT OP THE COMMANDMENTS. 185 



are thrown into it, by man's perverse resistance to its 
laws. Artificial pains and self-inflicted mortifications 
cannot be in harmony with the divine economy of 
things. To reject the good and the beautiful which 
Providence offers for blameless enjoyment to the pure 
mind; betrays more hatred of the world than love of 
God. To keep the commandments in the largest and 
noblest sense, is not mere abstinence, a simple nega- 
tion of impulse and action, enforced by 'Thou shalt 
not ; — but hearty and energetic co-operation with the 
Divine Will, for the production of all good far and 
wide, and the freest self- development of a spiritual 
nature through reason, conscience and affection, in 
harmony with its original constitution, its assigned 
sphere of action, and its indicated end. 

It is true, that pain and effort and self-sacrifice are 
often essential to the full accomplishment of this di- 
vine work — not for their own sake, but to overcome 
the effects of previous evil, which have been allowed 
to accumulate through long self-neglect, or brought 
upon life by the violence and injustice of others. We 
perceive on reflection, that our own vicious habits and 
affections have raised up barriers between ourselves 
and God \ or that we are so circumscribed by the op- 
pressive power of tyrannical and wicked men, that we 
cannot freely obey our consciences, and use, as we see 
that we ought to use, the resources of good which 
Providence has put within our reach. These evils 
must be overcome. They lie on the threshold of a 
religious life. Our sinful habits must be corrected; 
our evil affections rooted out \ will, conscience, and 
feeling, must be brought into harmony, that we may 



186 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

become perfect masters of ourselves. Whatever is un- 
just or inhumane in our relations with others, must be 
resisted and overpowered, that we may have free and 
wide scope for independent action and the fullest play 
of our moral and spiritual affections. For if it be true, 
as Paul says, e where the spirit of the Lord is, there 
is liberty/ the converse must also be true, that where 
there is no liberty inward and outward, the spirit of 
the Lord cannot be. 

Man's life seems often spent in efforts, not wholly 
successful, to achieve this liberty \ but it is not, there- 
fore, spent in vain. The character is strengthened and 
ennobled by every earnest and sincere endeavour to 
realize our convictions of the right and true. There 
is no satisfaction so sweet as the consciousness of van- 
quished difficulty and asserted justice. There is no 
reflection so delightful as that of handing down a bet- 
ter and a happier world to our children and our chil- 
dren's children. But this struggle with evils of arti- 
ficial creation — this warfare with tyranny and intole- 
rance — this life-long self-sacrifice of the high-minded 
and virtuous — is not the essential, nor will it be the 
permanent, condition of humanity on earth, though 
some would fain keep it so, to justify their own nar- 
row and miserable theology. These things are but 
preparatory — the birth-throes of a better time : — and 
though there must ever remain enough of conflict 
with divers forms of evil without and within, to fur- 
nish our moral discipline and stimulate our latent 
powers into activity ; — beyond the havoc and disorder 
which girt in with dark and frowning aspect our im- 
mediate view, the mental eye discerns the distant 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 187 

peaks of that brighter future, when this earth will no 
more be a vast battle-field of hatred and oppression, 
but a blooming garden for the abundant growth of all 
those seeds of good which the Creator has scattered 
on every soil and sown in every heart. Unless all the 
tendencies and indications of the world's history de- 
ceive us, this is the future which awaits us ; and to 
prepare for it by intelligent discourse respecting it, 
we must give up the worn-out and unmeaning diction 
of a large part of our current theology. We must 
breathe the eternal spirit into new modes of speech. 
We must still address ourselves to that deep faith in 
God and goodness which lies hid in every human 
breast ; but we must not attempt to call it forth by 
the extinct magic of phrases, which reason rejects and 
from which the affections recoil. What are the com- 
mandments that are everlastingly obligatory on man ? 
Xothing arbitrary — nothing conventional — a creation 
of time and place and positive institution, enforced by 
outward authority ; but rather the varied applications 
of one unchanging law, grounded in our moral con- 
stitution, and moulding it to its destined perfection. 
Of this law — the principle is a spirit of loving sym- 
pathy with God ; and its fulfilment, the application of 
that spirit, under the guidance of reason, to the end- 
less objects and interests of every part of human life. 

There is a relative, as well as a more general, per- 
fection in man, which must not be lost sight of in 
examining the question of his proper vocation in life. 
There is required of him not only a culture of his 
whole being as man, but also a diligent and faithful 
adaptation of certain of his powers to the particular 



188 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



circumstances in which he is placed. Life's purpose 
is only adequately accomplished, in discharging both 
these claims ; and indeed the more limited service is a 
necessary condition of the general development. You 
find yourself, them, occupying a given position in the 
world. It has its appointed duties — its special op- 
portunities of usefulness — trials also, difficulties and 
temptations of its own. Take your lot, as it is as- 
signed you, without murmuring. Make the best of 
it : and if in the eyes of men it seem unhonoured and 
unenviable, ennoble it by your own spirit, and work 
your way through it by character and honest industry, 
to something better and happier. If, on the other 
hand, you find it accord with your inclination, and 
open before you a fair prospect of worldly advance- 
ment — be assured, there is nothing irreligious in ho- 
nourably aiming at success and eminence in it, and 
still less in openly avowing, that such is your object. 
Every pursuit which conduces to the welfare of the 
world, has its appropriate honour attending it ; and a 
genuine virtue is developed by enthusiasm for what 
is highest in our own line of action. You may treat 
life as a problem, which has to be wrought out to a 
successful result, with certain moral conditions at- 
tached to it. Do not, because it looks difficult, timo- 
rously shrink from attempting the solution ; but work 
through every part of it, whether you get the whole 
result or not, without violating one of its moral con- 
ditions. Draw the utmost from it that it will yield, 
for temporal prosperity, for social weight and position, 
for honour, usefulness, mental culture and refined 
enjoyment — consistently with the strictest integrity, 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 189 

with health and the exercise of the affections, with a 
remembrance of the end of life, and a cheerful sub- 
mission to the Divine Will. Whatever your vocation 
in life — whether you labour with the head or with 
the hand — whether you write books, or manufacture 
cloth — whether your ships cross every sea, or your 
whole stock in trade is contained within the four walls 
of your humble shop — whether you sit on the bench 
of justice, or earn your honest wages from week to 
week — honour your work as assigned you by God, 
who regards not its subject matter, but the spirit in 
which it is performed, — and, as in > his sight, with a 
loyal and devoted heart, strive to be outdone by no 
one in the completeness and efficiency of its execu- 
tion. This is the healthy view of our human world. 
Contentment, comfort, abundance — depend on its wide 
diffusion. It would put every one in his proper place, 
and fit him with his proper task. It would let none 
be idle, and leave none in want. It would abolish 
useless privilege, and bring all under the constraint 
of wholesome duty. This view reconciles earth and 
heaven. While we are in the world, it makes us, in 
the best of senses, friends with the world,— but not 
less fitted for heaven, when we pass away. It is also 
the honest and sincere view. Thousands who disown 
it, act upon it ; and none more so, and with a keener 
eye even to selfish advancement, than some who put 
forth an exclusive claim to the religious character. 
Such is the course of action which contributes to 
relative perfection, by linking our individual lives 
through specific duties with the general well-being of 
the world. 



190 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OP FAITH AND DUTY. 



But with duties of this description growing out of 
our particular circumstances, a higher culture must 
be associated. First, under this head come the affec- 
tions, which have so large an influence in promoting 
a more general and purely human perfection. A man 
without affections, is at best but a reasoning machine. 
As you cherish your humanity, and wish to prepare 
it for everlasting communion with God, let your af- 
fections be cultivated with ardour and purity through 
all the successive periods of life. Let each blossom 
forth beautiful and appropriate in its own season. Let 
none be nipped by untimely cares, or eaten away by 
the rust of selfishness, or dashed to the ground in 
its fresh bloom by the gusts of wild passion .and law- 
less appetite. Let there be time and place for all — 
each passing by imperceptible gradations into its 
successor — for youth's sweet loves and open-hearted 
friendships — for the firmer attachments of mature 
years — for the sacred joys of home — for the blessed 
anxieties of children's education and settlement in 
life — for the new interests of the second generation — 
and for that gentler flow of kind and holy feeling 
which gathers into it the balmiest memories of the 
past, and drops its freshening dew on the quiet hour 
of life's decline. Go not from the world with the 
joyless consciousness of those, to whom the fountains 
of its purest bliss have been sealed — whose retrospect 
of life is an arid waste, because the waters of the 
heart have no:; been permitted to gush freely over it, 
and clothe it with herbage and shade. He has not 
lived to a true moral purpose, nor drawn from life the 
rich experience that it ought to yield, whose bosom 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 



191 



has not warmly glowed through every changing phasis 
of interest and relationship, with the tender or gene- 
rous or solemn emotions that were appropriate to 
each. 

Further, you have a mind, that is not merely an 
instrument of outward action, but has a value of its 
own, and may become a treasury of inward wealth, 
through all time. Cultivate this precious gift for its 
own sake. If wholly concentrated on the objects of a 
secular calling, it may warp and contract • while the 
same practical exercise, if associated with general cul- 
ture, will only give it vigour and acuteness. Examine 
it well, and see what elements it contains. If you 
find in it any peculiar aptitude or remarkable endow- 
ment — memory, invention, poetic fancy, power of rea- 
soning, or quickness of observation — call forth that in- 
dwelling faculty, and direct it to pursuits in which it 
is born to excel. As far as circumstances afford you 
scope, resolve that the one or the many talents which 
you may possess, shall not lie in you unawakened and 
powerless, but shall come out and do fitting work for 
others' good and your own ennoblement, in such mea- 
sure as God has ordained, and in cheerful response to 
the invitations which announce His pleasure to the 
observant mind. Every one who honestly looks for it, 
will find something peculiarly his own — something 
which no one else is either placed in circumstances, 
or endowed with qualities, to do equally well. Therein 
lies his appointed work, noble and beautiful because 
it is his own. In that field he will reap his proper 
fame and glory. We miss the true end of our being, 
because we heed not the voice of nature, and listen 



192 CHRISTIAN ASFECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



to the false suggestions of prejudice and vanity. Be 
satisfied with what belongs to you. Draw out your 
hidden power, nor he withheld by a false modesty 
from making an honest and courageous use of it. In 
such an effort you will be fulfilling the highest com- 
mandment of God. 

Again, this world is full of beauty — full of innocent 
gladness. Open your inmost sense to all the influ- 
ences of what is brightest and happiest in the scenes 
around you. Let the spirit be clear and transparent, 
to receive and transmit these blessed influences of the 
Creator's love, and send out the light of them on 
other hearts. Only a pure and gentle soul can feel 
them. Keep yours so, that they do not come to you 
in rain. There is impiety in letting all this beauty 
rise and set on us daily unfelt. To sympathize with 
the loveliness which blooms and sparkles in every as- 
pect of this terrestrial paradise, is silent praise — -that 
worship of the heart, more audible to the ear of God, 
than the chanted litany of the cathedral. No rare 
and favoured scenes are wanted to kindle this purest 
spirit of devotion. Wherever the earth teems and 
blossoms beneath our feet — wherever the bright arch 
of heaven bends over our heads — the simplest objects 
of the garden and the field, clothed in the fitting 
livery of each season as it comes, and set off by the 
rich lights of the ever-changing skies — suffice to en- 
circle our daily walks with beauty, and fill the quiet, 
loving heart with a sweet and holy joy which comes 
to the lips in the unbidden words — 'How glorious are 
thy works, O God ! ; And how often have these things 
come and gone, and we hardly marked them as they 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 193 



passed ! Yes, year after year brings up the solemn 
procession of the months, and leaves perhaps not one 
bright impression on our souls. Treasures of unsus- 
pected beauty abound in this universe, which our dull 
eyes never see, and our worldly, selfish hearts cannot 
enjoy. We have dissolved the communion with na- 
ture. Our artificial habits and contrariety to her laws 
have shut us out from all acquaintance with the finest 
expressions of her divine countenance. Who that is 
enslaved, as most are, to our conventional distribution 
of the hours, has not felt a deep reproach for ungrate- 
ful neglect enter his soul, when some fortunate acci- 
dent has made him a spectator of the glories of the 
rising day? — The grand silence of earth and skies, 
just broken by the faint twitter of awakening life— 
the pure freshness that breathes over the yet untainted 
world — the exquisite purple of the eastern hills edged 
with a silvery rim of light, deepening into broader 
and more lustrous gold — the pale, cold grey of reced- 
ing night where moon and stars still beautiful are 
dimly vanishing — the rich, influent tide of day, so 
different from the melting softness of its ebbing hues, 
that is reflected every moment with increasing sharp- 
ness and force from the objects over which it rolls, 
and that lights up as with the joyousness of hope into 
boundless brilliancy the dewy womb of morning — 
these effects, so rapid in their succession and so glori- 
ous, so like a new creation — take us back to the be- 
ginning of time, and transport us to the Eden of our 
first parents, and make us feel like them, in the 
presence of these sublime transitions of unchanging 
nature, that the spirit of the living God is around 

K 



L94 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 



us."* And shall we go from this world without once 
tasting the banquet of sweets which the Divine munifi- 
cence has provided for us ? Thousands have done so, 
and deemed themselves pious men ; though their eye 
was never raised from the dull soil which they daily 
paced, and the page whereon God has written his 
brightest thoughts, was to them a blank. 

Think not thou art keeping the commandments, if 
thou close up thy sense to any manifestation of thy 
Creator's love in the scenes which encompass thee; 
but know, thou wilt best prepare thy soul for heaven, 
by steeping it in the spirit of heavenly beauty, by 
making thyself familiar with all joyous and lovely 
things, and carrying away in thy heart the rich ex- 
tract of their mingled influences, as a cordial for 
darker and sadder hours. A life without joy is a life 
without religion. Pain and grief must of course have 
their share in the texture of our mortal discipline ; but 
assuredly there is something wrong within, or some- 

* In the earliest ages, the £ break of day' seems to have been 
viewed by man with mingled feelings of poetry and devotion, and to 
have awakened solemn thoughts of the unchanging perpetuity of the 
universe. The most beautiful of the ancient Hindu hymns are ad- 
dressed to Ushas (the dawn). — c WMte-shining, many-tinted, the 
daughter of heaven, young, white-robed — dissipating the darkness, 
coming in her car, drawn by purple steeds — following the path of the 
mornings that have passed, and first of the endless mornings that 
are to come — Ushas arouses living beings, and awakens every one 
that lay as dead. For how long a period is it that the dawns have 
risen ? for how long a period will they rise, still desirous to bring us 
light ? Those mortals who beheld the pristine Ushas dawning have 
passed away ; to us she is now visible ; and they approach who may 
behold her in after times.' — H. IE. Wilson' *s Translation of the Rig- 
Veda-Sanluta, p. 298. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMAXDMEXTS. 195 



thing exceptional in rare misfortune without, if sad- 
ness gives a dominant 001001' to the life — if it is not 
relieved by the light of hours wherein the spirit of 
beauty and blameless enjoyment largely reigns — such 
hours as good men may own without a blush they 
dearly prize, and a God of love will not condemn. 

Art and literature — those choicest products of man's 
spiritual activity — -what are they but embodiments of 
the subtile spirit of beauty which floats over the face 
of the universe and penetrates to its living heart ? 
And why do they spring forth, and perpetuate them- 
selves in undying forms from age to age — but that 
men might fill their homes with the concentrated es- 
sence of what is holiest and best, and surround them- 
selves at all hours with the reflected light of the Di- 
vine benevolence? It were well, it should be felt 
throughout society, down into its humblest ranks, that 
the purpose of life is unaccomplished, and the de- 
signed effect of its discipline lost, if the words of the 
wise and the inspirations of the poet and the artist do 
not constantly mingle their purer and brighter influ- 
ence with the turbid flow of worldly sorrows and cares 
— if the spirit of beauty does not fill at times with a 
glow from heaven, the dark and heavy shades where 
myriads of the human race wear out their days. 

Once more, this universe is the dwelling-place of 
God. It is not a silent, tenantless palace, through 
whose labyrinthine passages and sculptured halls we 
stray for a brief space between the cradle and grave — 
forlorn and desolate, dismayed at our own echoes, with 
no voice from the inner sanctuary to give an answer 
to our inquiries. There is One within, invisible but 

k 2 



196 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



ever present, who invites us to spiritual communion, 
and when our prayers go np to Him, responds in a 
shower of silent blessing on the heart. Wouldst thou 
extract from life all its strength of hidden peace and 
joy; maintain, O man, a perpetual converse with thy 
God. See Him in all things. Own Him as the living 
Presence in which thou abidest for ever. This con- 
sciousness is the only true life ; and if we keep the 
commandments to their spirit, we shall pass into it. 
Nothing more is needed for the perfect happiness of 
man. 

One solemn consideration remains. What is the 
end of these things ? Eichly as we may have gathered 
wisdom and knowledge and enjoyment from our varied 
experience of the world — though the spirit of the com- 
mandments may have yielded us freely the spirit of 
life — the great change comes at last. We bloom, but 
to fade. We live, that we may die. — O Death, thou 
insoluble mystery, what art thou? Into what wilt 
thou conduct us ? What strange scene does thy 
dark veil intercept from our view ? Dost thou mer- 
cifully spare us a dizzy look into the abyss of an- 
nihilation? or art thou but a gate from the narrow 
womb of time into some new life .of wider joy and 
renovated love ? — There is but one reply. When the 
awful hour arrives, they who have most fully deve- 
loped the resources of this terrestrial being, they who 
have extracted from it the purest elements of wisdom 
and happiness — will derive from their past experience, 
the surest ground of hope and trust towards God. 
Familiarity with His thoughts and sympathy with 
His spirit, will open their mental vision to the appre- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 



197 



liension of higher verities looming on it dimly through 
the vastness of the Infinite, They Trill rely on the 
endless resources of the Divine Love. On retrospect, 
they will feel, that this mortal life, rich as it may 
have been in blessing and instruction, is yet an un- 
completed fact ; — that neither all its ends have been 
accomplished, nor all its powers developed, nor all its 
resources exhausted, nor all its loves satisfied, nor all 
its aspirations attained. In faith, therefore, they will 
look to Him whose mercies are unfailing, for the final 
realization of the plan which His providence com- 
menced, and for the fulfilment of expectations which 
the coincidence of His moral government with ten- 
dencies by Him implanted in the soul, could not fail 
to inspire. The words of Christ — that last and greatest 
of the prophets — that authentic messenger of God- 
proclaim with emphatic weight the promise of im- 
mortality. His spirit imbues the soul with a higher 
vitality. Whosoever liveth and believeth in him — in 
his spirit of faith and holiness and love — shall never 
die. 



198 



XIII. 

THE BLESSING OE SORROW. 

Isaiah liii. 3. 
" A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 

These words have been understood with great unani- 
mity as a prophetic description of Christ. More truly 
perhaps they are the designation of a class, of which 
Christ stands out as the culminating example — ful- 
filled in him, as he fulfilled the highest prophetic 
function and realized the great ideal of human duty 
and suffering. On either view they set forth a weighty 
truth, and proclaim an enduring law in the moral go- 
vernment of God : — that they who are selected to ac- 
complish the greatest ends of Providence, inevitably 
encounter in the course of action assigned them, a 
large amount of pain and toil and grief, which seems 
pure evil to the spell-bound eye of the multitude, but 
in its reaction on the moral nature often tends above 
every influence to purify and exalt it. If man be 
created for spiritual excellence, in spiritual excellence 
his true happiness must be found : and if sorrow con- 
duce to spiritual excellence, in sorrow itself there will 
be a blessing. But we must guard against miscon- 
ception. An important distinction is sometimes over- 
looked. Only such sorrow purifies and blesses, as 



THE BLESSING OF SORROW. 



199 



comes to us in the pursuit of high and noble ends, 
when it is the condition and attendant of moral deve- 
lopment — not such as results from mere animal want 
and suffering. For this — when it is not accidental 
and transient — when it acts permanently on entire 
classes of men — is positively and directly degrading 
in its effect. The Economists are perfectly right, 
when they contend in opposition to the old doctrine 
of the Church, that we cannot raise the moral standard 
of the depressed classes, till we have first improved 
their social condition, and that the artificial mainte- 
nance of poverty by systematic almsgiving, is a pro- 
lific source of crime and misery and degradation. 

It is not, therefore, in the stifling hold of a slave- 
ship : — in the close and noisome garret where wretched 
needle-women ply early and late their ill-requited 
trade — in the loathsome beggary that swarms about a 
convent-gate — or in the mud-cabins of Irish cottiers, 
where swine and children sleep on the same bed and 
eat off the same plate — that we are to look for the 
spiritualizing influence of privation and suffering. In 
many religious books there has been a great waste of 
unmeaning rhetoric on this topic. Man must be ex- 
empted from the craving appetites of a brute, before 
he can understand or even experience those sorrows of 
the soul which are the distinction and privilege of his 
higher nature. Not till we are freed from the press- 
ing cares of the body — when healthful industry is sure 
of its return and yields enough to content our frugal 
wants and moderate desires — in the still and quiet at- 
mosphere which then gathers round the life — is that 
more refined sensibility superinduced, which feels the 



200 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

deeper and grander sorrows of the spirit, and vibrates 
at the touch of outward wrong to the hidden fibres of 
the divine and immortal within. Those anxieties about 
a subsistence and the preservation of social position, 
which affect such extensive classes in periods of ex- 
treme civilization, depress and relax instead of ele- 
vating and bracing the mind, and consume all the 
elements of a genuine heroism in sordid and cautious 
selfishness. The acute agony which at times con- 
vulsed society to its centre, in its earliest struggles for 
justice and freedom, inflicted far less injury on the 
soul, than the low chronic malady which is silently 
eating away the vitals of the great cities of modern 
Europe. Want, anxiety, habitual discontent, and hate 
of fancied oppression, can never raise a class and ex- 
cite it to noble efforts. A new moral spirit must first 
pass over it, and transform the aspects of its physical 
suffering. It is the sorrow which draws sweetness 
from the affections and is hallowed by conscience — - 
the sorrow that mingles its sanctifying drop in the cup 
of virtuous love and pure-souled friendship — the sor- 
row which mortifies young ambition and tempers pre- 
sumptuous enthusiasm — the sorrow which makes us 
feel our weakness and inefficiency, when we have put 
forth earnest efforts to serve the truth and aid hu- 
man progress — this is the sorrow which chastens and 
exalts the spirit, and fills it with a noble seriousness, 
and binds it by holier ties to that ideal of perfection 
and blessedness, which never perishes from the trust 
and the aspiration of the true servants of God. 

The reason of this" is obvious. The sorrows which 
touch the heart, with such amount of outward evil as 



THE BLESSING OF SORROW. 



201 



calls tliera into existence, take ns out of the world of 
sense and bring us into immediate contact with the 
great spiritual realities which at other seasons are ob- 
scured even to virtuous men by the superior strength 
of present impressions."* An uninterrupted flow of 
worldly prosperity, even if amiably enjoyed and un- 
stained with vice, weakens and dissolves those higher 
faculties of the soul which converse with things eter- 
nal and unseen — makes us too keenly sensitive to the 
immediate sources of our personal enjoyment and dis- 
tinction — absorbs the ideal into the actual — and at 
last, perhaps, from sheer failure to supply any ade- 
quate excitement, lets down the soul into a stagnant 
depth of weariness and apathy. Taking men as they 
are, we should say, that the character was then placed 
in the most favourable circumstances for healthful de- 
velopment, when freed from ail consuming anxiety 
about the means of subsistence, it was at liberty to 
employ a large portion of time and effort on behalf of 
moral and spiritual objects, without being exempted 
from such alternation of success and disappointment, 
of joy and sorrow, in the great pursuit of life, as is 
needed to keep the nobler sensibilities in constant 
exercise, and seems best to qualify the virtuous for 
their specific task. An earnest nature will work out 
for itself the true discipline of life in every sphere 
whether high or low. None who heartily devote 
themselves to the cause of trutlTand right, will es- 
cape the chastening influence of sorrow. Thoie who 
possess a superfluity of outward good, who are rich 

# Kajjiuovcra ^vx'k zyyvs i&ti 0eou. Words traditionally ascribed 
to the apostle Peter, on the authority of Gregory ]S"azianzen. 

k3 



202 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

and honourable and highly accomplished — if they own 
the call of humanity, and take up with ardour and 
single-mindedness any one of the great questions 
which affect the progress of mankind — will find their 
experience sufficiently chequered with good and evil, 
and the pain and vexation of their conflict with the 
prejudice and the pride and the selfishness of the 
world, sufficiently strong — to open the deepest foun- 
tains of religious sensibility within them, and over- 
flow their hearts with the blessing of sacred sorrow. 

Faith and conscience and love, robbed of their fit- 
ting objects within this visible sphere, bring strength 
and comfort from a higher source to the exhausted 
soul, and fill it with a trust not of earth. It is this 
trust which sanctifies the sorrow and converts it into 
blessing. — When brave men have struggled for right 
and freedom, and sunk at last overpowered by a com- 
bination of the wicked — exiled and homeless, their cha- 
racters traduced by the lying and the base, the cause 
for which they had perilled life and fame, ruined ap- 
parently for ever — is their peace all gone? Is no 
still small voice of blessing to be heard, amidst the 
mighty wail which is raised when they fall? Men 
of sorrow and acquainted with grief, is their nature 
crushed, or does it rise and aspire with the noble 
consciousness of a just cause that still burns with 
undiminished strength in their breasts? Does no- 
thing remain for the true-hearted patriot, which the 
world's calumnies and persecutions cannot take from 
him ? Yes, one blessing with which no earthly good 
can compare — unshaken faith in the God of righte- 
ousness and truth — high trust in that eternal justice 



THE BLESSING OF SORROW. 



203 



which must prevail, though cast down for the mo- 
ment, because it is sustained by the arm of the Om- 
nipotent. Looking back in prison or in banishment, 
and even amidst the anxieties of flight, on the dark 
field where the star of their fortunes set in blood- 
happy, thrice happy, are such men, when the memory 
of their heroic efforts and overwhelming losses, of 
their long torture of suspense and final agony of hope- 
less defeat, keeps up in full activity that ardent love 
of their country and their kind, and that pure spirit of 
self-devotion to right and truth, which prompted their 
sacrifices and makes their sufferings light, and leaves 
them still, in the very depth of worldly destitution, 
the holiest consolation. That glorious remembrance 
blending with the thought of God and the irreversible 
destinies of his human family, swells into a tide of 
generous and lofty emotion which sweeps away the 
petty solicitudes of personal ambition and the galling 
sense of personal wrongs, and dissolves them in nobler 
aspirations and wider sympathies. They feel them- 
selves servants — -weak and ineffectual, but honest and 
faithful, servants— of Him who hath sworn by Him- 
self, that the cause of humanity shall ultimately van- 
quish its enemies, and triumph in the earth. As the 
Lord liveth, they are sure, that retribution will come, 
with slow and silent, but unerring, step — to re-esta- 
blish justice on a firmer basis and bestow a larger 
freedom on mankind. The martyrs' hope consoles 
them, that the memory of their sufferings and the 
example of their heroism may descend with kindling 
energy on the best minds of other times, and scatter 
the materials of an enthusiasm in whose resistless con- 



204 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

flagration the works of the tyrant and oppressor will 
be finally consumed. Misfortune cannot deprive them 
of the conviction, that they have co-operated, to the 
measure of their strength, with the purposes of the 
Almighty. And His purposes who shall frustrate ? 
They draw nigh to Him in that elevating trust ; and 
the sorrow that overshadows their hearts, sheds on 
them a silent blessing, which they would not ex- 
change for the insolent joy that mingles in the tri- 
umph of unrighteous victory. If sighs escape their 
lips and tears suffuse their eyes — it is from no selfish 
grief — no fear for themselves — no want of faith in the 
providence of the Ail-just : but it is from sympathy 
with fallen and suffering man — from the thought of 
the oppression and cruelty which still scourge the 
earth, of blooming fields laid waste, and towns re- 
duced to ashes, and homes silent and desolate — of 
husbands, brothers, friends torn from the tender and 
helpless ones that clung to them for protection — of 
brave and virtuous men hurried prematurely from life 
by the hand of the executioner ; — it is from remem- 
brance of the load of guilt and wrong that must be 
heaved from the earth, ere freedom and industry can 
once more resume their peaceful sway. The affections 
break over the darkened soul at that sad prospect, in 
a flood of sacred sorrow, which relieves its oppression 
and opens a way for the returning influences of a 
holier faith and love. 

There are sorrows that affect a more private sphere 
of action : and these too have their appropriate com- 
pensations. Some in every age have been found, 
willing for a good conscience and the love of truth, 



THE BLESSING OF SORROW. 



205 



to renounce the path that led up the steep ascent of 
worldly honour, and to end their days in contented 
obscurity at its foot. We read of such things, and 
we give them our cold approval. Do we adequately 
conceive the severity of the sacrifice which they in- 
volve ? — Here is a man of genius and sensibility, with 
a heart open to all gentle and tender affections, en- 
dowed with tastes and accomplishments at once" to 
enjoy and to enhance the delights of cultivated and 
refined society. Behold him, then, on the threshold 
of life — in those years when ambition is strong, and 
hope throws her brightest tints on the gleaming haze 
of the future — the world's prizes glittering in his 
eye — and conscious of powers that would certainly 
make them his own — forbidden by the voice within 
to engage in the dishonest race, commanded on pain 
of self- contempt, to stand aside and see others con- 
fessedly his inferiors rush past him to wealth and 
honours and the softer blessings of an easy and elegant 
home — with few to comprehend, and fewer still to ap- 
plaud, his choice. Is this a slight trial of faith and 
principle ? Is it nothing, to see the field closed against 
him, for which alone he had been trained, and feels 
himself fit ? Nothing, to be cast on the uncertainties 
of the outer world; — nothing, to renounce perhaps 
all the hopes which gave to life its dearest charm ; — 
nothing, to be thrown amongst men with whom he 
has no sympathy, and to be confounded with some 
whose spirit is distasteful and whose principles are 
abhorred — the refined mixed up in the rough compe- 
titions of life with the violent and coarse, the calmly 
wise with the wildly visionary, the reverential and con- 



206 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

servative with the profane and the revolutionary ? — ■ 
Yet such things have been bravely and cheerfully 
borne by the noblest spirits : and though there was 
sadness upon their soul — though they were truly e men 
of sorrows and acquainted with grief — there was 
consolation for them deep and full, of which the world 
little dreamed, in a heart at peace with itself and in 
communion with God, able to look up to Him with a 
filial confidence, and not afraid to ask his blessing. 
By a beautiful compensation of our nature, the sa- 
crifices which are sometimes required to obtain the 
privilege of speaking truth and acting uprightly, exalt 
in the same degree the enjoyment which springs from 
every virtuous exercise of the faculties. Having 
thrown off" by one noble effort, all the fetters which 
restrained the free action of the mind, we can now 
give ourselves up to the full delight of following truth 
wherever it leads, and of obeying to its utmost re- 
quirements the bidding of the sacred voice within. 
Sacrifice brings its reward, by converting simple duty 
into positive happiness. We have attained our end in 
the liberty to work freely with God. A religious 
consecration invests the whole life, which keeps the 
idea of God ever present to the thoughts. Simply to 
do His will, we feel now the privilege and joy of our 
being. We have allied ourselves with Him : and 
whatever henceforth we speak and write and do, no 
longer extorted by fear or blindly yielded to authority, 
but issuing from strong conviction and impregnated 
with the spirit of love — will be taken up, we are sure, 
by his Providence, and made strong with a heavenly 
strength, for the overthrow of falsehood and wrong, 



THE BLESSING OF SORROW, 



207 



and the gradual preparation of a reign of truth and 
virtue in the world. Conscious sympathy with God, 
conscious sympathy with the noblest spirits of all 
ages, joined to the hope of being associated with them 
hereafter in some more glorious state of being — exalt 
the happiness of all virtuous efforts, whatever pain 
and sacrifice they cost, and however void of honour in 
the world — and fill the depths of the soul with a 
sweet intensity of joy, unknown and inconceivable by 
those whose intellectual labours are disjoined from 
high spiritual feeling. Old loves, old regrets, disap- 
pointments, crosses and mortifications — memories that 
would darken the retrospect of other men — are here 
softened into beauty by the religious light that is cast 
over them from the now acquiescent and trustful 
spirit, and retain only enough of sadness to infuse a 
rarer flavour into the emotion they inspire, and make 
the sorrow that springs up in the bosom of integrity, 
a rich cordial to the soul. 

Yes, there is a sorrow which chastens and elevates 
the heart, and betrays itself in manly seriousness of 
voice and look — when the grand realities of life press 
heavily on the thoughts — when the world's false lights 
disappear, and it lies before us plain and naked as it is, 
its infinite littleness absorbed in the awful bosom of 
eternity — when things invisible reveal themselves to 
the inward eye, and in the solemn aspect of existence 
which they disclose, we feel it a far happier lot to toil 
and suffer with the wise and virtuous few who have 
made truth and conscience their choice, than swim 
down the stream of worldly prosperity, with the vain 
and thoughtless crowd whose faith and worship are 



208 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 

fixed on perishable shows ;— a sorrow^ grave and earn- 
est and compassionate — in gentle unison with all that 
is beautiful and glorious in nature, with all that is 
true-hearted and noble in humanity, with all that is 
consoling and sublime in the aspirations of Religion ■ 
yes. this is a sorrow, which brings in its visitations the 
selectest influences of a better world, and leaves be- 
hind it a power of heavenly wisdom on the soul. In 
the shade of this divine sadness, the true prophets of 
humanity — e men of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief 7 — have ever dwelt — all who have had thoughts 
above the world, and yet have loved it with a pure and 
holy love — all who have striven to reform its wicked- 
ness, and abate its suffering, and animate it with juster 
principles and higher aims. But the sadness was dear 
to their hearts ; they found in it a sacred peace. 

If we descend into the bosom of the humblest 
homes, in the lights and shades which chequer the 
ordinary flow of human life, we find ample scope for 
that holiest discipline of the heart which is admi- 
nistered by sorrow. TTherever sorrow comes, in the 
way of duty, or by the appointment of Providence for 
the trial of the believing and virtuous, it brings with 
it a blessing peculiarly its own. It is the special 
privilege of Religion, amidst the changes which affect 
our condition and interrupt our relations, that ir 
permits us to look up to a Parent Alind, and refer our- 
selves to His disposal, and feel sure that He designs 
our good. The comfort that flows from such a belief, 
rich in proportion to our own need of it — is a proof 
from experience, weightier far than all the demon- 
strations of the theologian, that there is a Father in 



THE BLESSING OP SORROW. 



209 



heaven, who dwells in our human affections, and gives 
them their sweetness, and is ever present with the 
balm of his Spirit to heal their wounds. How does 
sorrow in all its forms, bring home this truth to the 
heart ! A crippled and suffering child, looked at from 
without, seems the heaviest of domestic afflictions. 
Yet once confided to our care, what an object of 
tender interest it becomes ! What gentle and holy 
affections hover over it ! What a web of soft and 
fostering duty is woven round it ! It gives new beauty 
and value to life. We would fain keep it with us for 
ever, What a void is left, when it is removed by the 
hand of death ! The heart then learns the deep bless- 
ing of sorrow, ill exchanged for the drier interests 
and the tasteless pleasures that must now come in its 
place. 

There are sorrows inseparable from our choicest 
blessings. In the anxieties attendant on the settle- 
ment of children in the world — in the success of one, 
in the failure of another, in parting with a third to 
distant lands — there is a fuller and more earnest play 
of the affections, a wider opening of the heart to the 
best influences, a more healthful excitement of deep 
moral feeling involving elements of incommunicable 
blessedness — than can ever be experienced in the easy 
and comfortable existence of self-indulgent celibacy, 
or even by those whose command of worldly pa- 
tronage enables them to place their children at once 
in situations of honour and independence. Freedom 
from care is not identical with happiness. Apathy is 
the chilling blight of all true life. There can be no 
genuine happiness without the presence of moral and 



210 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DITTY. 



religions feeling ; and this is impossible, where smooth 
success and luxurious ease lull all deep emotion into 
quietude. TTho does not know, how affection is called 
forth by misfortune and sickness, and how it will put 
forth a strength and richness of blessing little sus- 
pected till it was wanted, When our friends are 
thrown on our help, and can make us no return but a 
requital of their love,, there is a generous delight in 
serving them. YTe are almost thankful for the mis- 
chance which tests the purity of our attachment, and 
enables us to show it without a suspicion of selfishness. 
How doubly precious a life that is dear to us, becomes, 
when it no longer moves about free and independent 
in the midst of our social circle, but is confined to one 
spot, and can only be preserved from day to day by 
the constancy of cm attentions and the thoughtfulness 
of our love ! It rests now as a sacred charge on us. 
TTe hold it as a pledge from the Almighty Giver, for 
the fidelity of our service. The affections gather with 
a concentrated tenderness on the single point of duty 
and sympathy, where active kindness belongs for the 
time to one side only of the relation, and no token of 
reciprocation can be given on the other, but the faint 
bowing of the head which expresses a mute thank- 
fulness, and the tender love which still gleams mo- 
mentarily from the languid eye. 

It is in the solemn horn of final separation that the 
affections assume their holiest aspect, and the sorrow 
that has done with time, finds a peace that comes from 
the eternal rest. Those who have experienced this 
last visitation of earthly sorrow, and seen the mortal 
breath pass from the pale hps of parent, child or friend 



THE BLESSING OF SORROW, 



211 



— know well, that at such an hour, whatever faith is 
latent in the heart, comes forth in all its strength, and 
rises up to the demand of our wants, and enables us to 
say in the depth of heavenly trust, Father, thy will be 
done. Never are the beloved so dear, never so in- 
separable from our inmost spirit, never can we so little 
conceive the possibility of their perishing from us for 
ever — as in the moment when death throws his dark 
veil between us and them, and faith glows into in- 
tensity under the breath of affection, Never as then 
is this life so completely a nothing, and death a tran- 
sient passage, and heaven the one only reality. 

Christianity in the highest sense is the Eeligion of 
Sorrow. It baptizes the heart with a holy sadness, 
and prepares it for the descent of the Spirit of God. 
Christ leads us on to perfection as f a man of sorrows 
and acquainted with grief/ Oethsemane and Calvary 
are the scenes where he teaches us most effectually 
the necessity of life's struggles and the secret of its 
consolations. All that concerns the interests of the 
present life, we can learn for ourselves, and. from those 
with whom we daily live, Science and human ex- 
perience suffice for this. What we need is the higher 
discipline that will convert pain and toil and grief and 
disappointment and death into blessings for the soul — ■ 
blessings of unearthly sweetness and a virtue which 
nothing can touch, subsisting through every change 
into the eternal life. This discipline we learn from 
him who has consecrated sorrow and made death 
beautiful. The suffering Christ is the best supporter 
of the heart that is bowed with grief. He passed 
through all the crises of our humanity, even our doubts 



212 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

and our fears, and fathomed the darkest depths of our 
sorrow. But the fear was momentary ; the doubt only 
rose to pass away. Fear and doubt were alike dissolved 
in the warmth of that human love, which prayed for 
enemies, and comforted the penitent, and consigned 
the weeping mother to the tried affection of the friend : 
— fear and doubt passed away in the clear visions of 
that heavenly trust which spake forth triumphant in 
the words — ' Father, into thy hands I commend my 
spirit.' 



218 



XIV. 

MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 



Matthew vii. 12. 
" All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
even so to them : for this is the Law and the Prophets." 

This is one of those grand, universal commandments, 
written by Gods finger on the conscience of all men 
— of which it is the singular distinction, to be every- 
where admitted and everywhere disobeyed. It is so 
obviously essential to the order and harmony of the 
world, that no sophistry is shameless enough to dis- 
pute it. Its fulfilment is hindered by so many weak- 
nesses and thwarted by so many impulses which the 
best cannot wholly overcome, that every one must 
feel on reviewing any considerable portion of his ex- 
istence, how constantly he has violated it. It is a 
protest against selfishness : and selfishness, cleaving 
as it does to the inmost core of our being, is the be- 
setting sin of the world. It is, further, one of those 
commandments, the keeping of which to the outward 
letter, without reference to the inward and governing 
spirit, would often be productive of the greatest mis- 
chief. To treat others properly, we are told to put 
ourselves in their situation, and to imagine how, in 
that case, we should wish them to act towards us. 
But to obtain a right judgment, something more than 



214 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

a mere change of places is required. We must take 
with us into the new circumstances, a correct estimate 
of the mutual obligations of mankind. Undue sus- 
ceptibility and the preponderance of mere feeling over 
thoughtfulness may equally mislead us, whether we 
look at the case from another's point of view or from 
our own. The question is, not what we might actually 
wish with our present views, but what with juster 
views we ought to wish. It is not enough simply to 
conceive ourselves in the position of others ; we have 
also to consider how, when there, it would be our duty 
to feel and act towards them, if removed to ours. 

A certain degree of moral culture, therefore, must 
be presupposed, apprehending the general spirit of the 
precept — to enable us to use it as a clear and certain 
rule in our intercourse with mankind. Like most of 
Christ's precepts, it is designed for strength of im- 
pression and readiness of application. It is thrown off 
with an unqualified breadth and generality of state- 
ment, and left to find its practical limits in the subse- 
quent reflection and experience of the recipient mind. 
It is a popular, not a scientific, enunciation of a great 
general truth. Nevertheless it seizes with the sort of 
intuitive tact and subtle depth of penetration, which 
we ever remark in the oracles of a true prophet — pre- 
cisely that element of selfishness in the mind, which 
deadens its clear perception of the full claims of social 
duty. Our daily sins against the Christian law of 
equity and love, have their source in an habitual want 
of sympathy with others. We think too much of our- 
selves. We look at all things too exclusively from our 
own point of view, and clothe them in the light of 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 215 

our personal interests and affections. To place our- 
selves where others are, if it does not at once disclose 
to us the true measure and whole extent of our obli- 
gations, at least removes the chief obstacle to our dis- 
cernment of them. If you can but dissolve the blind- 
ing mists of selfishness, and let the warm, genial 
influences of a kindly heart have free access to the 
world without, and reveal its many claims upon us in 
the broad sunshine of human sympathy, — reason will 
easily supply the needful cautions and limitations. Its 
\lsion, now unobstructed and free, will perceive with- 
out difficulty, what the true interest of others de- 
mands, and what we ourselves with the same enlight- 
enment in their situation would wish them to do to 
us. Reason must guide the impulses of the heart : 
but reason would never act at all, and have no mate- 
rials with which to deal — ■unless impulses first came 
to it from the heart ; and it is these impulses which 
are cherished and administered by Religion. The 
precept in the text does not meet all the requirements 
of the ethical philosopher ; but it enjoins the preserva- 
tion of that preliminary state of moral feeling — that 
breadth and openness and promptitude of human sym- 
pathy — which is the condition of a clear apprehension 
of all the demands of justice between man and man. 
On the consistent maintenance of this justice, far 
more than on the misplaced charity which is too often 
made its substitute, I shall now endeavour to show, 
that the tranquil progress of society and the true in- 
terests of every class mainly depend. 

What we ought to desire as the supreme good for 
ourselves, we ought also, in the spirit of this Christian 



218 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



precept, to desire for all our fellow-men — and that 
is, the highest development of moral character — the 
true life of God — proportionate to the gift which each 
individual has received, and the opportunities with 
which he is surrounded. This is the sole condition of 
a genuine worth and blessedness. Only in living thus, 
does man attain the end for which he was created, 
and fulfil the destined perfection of his being. Now, 
this highest good — apart from which all others are 
valueless — cannot be put into a man; it must come 
out of him. If you attempt to give, what can only 
proceed from within — you may weaken, or even ex- 
tinguish, the only possible means of its development. 
The good which makes man in himself, brave, noble, 
wise, blessed and free — must be evolved from personal 
effort — must be won in the resolute mastery of evil 
and difficulty, in the laborious pursuit and manly 
achievement of excellence — must be the fruit of ear- 
nest self-culture and self-development. A true man 
can only be produced under such conditions. Any in- 
fluence, under however friendly an aspect it may be 
offered, which enfeebles the stimulus to exertion and 
abridges the power of self-dependence, perils his dear- 
est interests and eats away the living root of charac- 
ter. For the fullest display of this principle of self- 
development in the individual, justice is the grand 
prerequisite of social intercourse. It makes every 
man secure within his own sphere of action ; protects 
him against intrusion from without ; and leaves him 
free and undisturbed to work out his own conception 
of duty, and follow his proper business of self-culture. 
It teaches him to know his own limits, and respect 
those of his neighbour. 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 



217 



In working out, then, my own emancipation from 
difficulty, whether of mind or of circumstances — in 
striving after the attainment of social respectability 
and independence and increased opportunities of in- 
tellectual cultivation — in one word, after all those out- 
ward means which I perceive are the conditions of 
the highest moral and spiritual good — I must be care- 
ful not to exceed the boundaries with which Provi- 
dence has marked off the portion of this world's sur- 
face assigned to me; I must be satisfied with the 
powers and resources contained within it ; and I must 
not, to increase my individual riches, enter my neigh- 
bour's field, and rob him of his. This is justice ; and 
what I observe towards others, I may reasonably ex- 
pect them to observe towards me. On the other hand, 
when I see extensive classes of men surrounded with 
difficulty and sternly grappling with toil — my first 
feeling, excited by contrast with situations apparently 
more favoured, and prompted by a natural tenderness 
of heart, would probably be this : ' Were I in the si- 
tuation of these men, how I should thank any com- 
passionate friend, who would step in and deliver me 
from this incessant toil, and give me a little rest and 
ease ! What I in their circumstances should wish for 
myself, ought not I to endeavour to procure for them?' 
Such is often the spontaneous suggestion of unreflect- 
ing benevolence j and under such feelings it has not 
unfrequently proceeded to act. But if we watch, the 
process to the end, we observe that integrity and per- 
severance usually triumph at last over all their obsta- 
cles, and carry away a glorious result of manly hardi- 
hood and sturdy self-reliance. A graver question, there- 

L 



218 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 

fore, remains behind the hasty impulse of natural kind- 
heartedness. Can it be right to relieve the physical 
wants of men, at the expense of weakening their mo- 
ral energies and their sense of self-respect ? Is it the 
higher or the lower part of my own nature, which 
thus sympathizes with diminished exertion and re- 
sponsibility, and would so far extinguish the noblest 
functions of humanity, and take away the condition of 
its truest worth ? Distinctly realizing to myself the 
known consequences of such treatment, and seeing 
hoy/ it tends to degrade and pauperize the minds sub- 
jected to it — can I honestly say, that, with situations 
reversed, I should desire others to act towards me, as 
I under the influence of a weak sentimentality, am 
disposed to act towards them? — I am not arguing 
against the occasional and thoughtful exercise of di- 
rect beneficence, still less, contending for the infliction 
of gratuitous hardship. I would merely lay down the 
broad principle — that to do as we would be done by, 
becomes then only a safe rule of social intercourse, 
and puts truly in practice the great idea of human 
brotherhood, when Ave do not surrender ourselves to 
the impulses of undisciplined feelings, but keep the 
value of an immortal soul and the end of human life 
distinctly in view. There is no more flagrant violation 
of the spirit of this divine precept, than to permit, 
much more to encourage, the existence of a class, lost 
to all feeling of self-respect, dead to every motive of 
self-maintenance, and dependent for its subsistence 
from day to day, on the voluntary or compulsory alms 
of other classes. 

It is not without an ominous significance, that what 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 219 

is called Socialism, makes its appearance amongst the 
great movements of the present age. All who look 
into the future with any power of moral divination, 
must perceive, that vast social questions — questions 
that go to the very heart of social organization, and 
may involve an extensive re-adjustment of the rela- 
tions of classes — must sooner or later mix themselves 
with the political and ecclesiastical controversies 
which once exclusively agitated the public mind, and 
give new prominence to the feelings and interests of 
myriads who are beginning to unite with the undimi- 
nished toil and hardship of former centuries, the in- 
telligence which is peculiar to this. It can hardly be 
questioned, that we are as yet only in the rudiments 
of the great science of Society. That there is wide- 
spread error somewhere — in our principles or in our 
application of them — in the ruling maxims of govern- 
ments or in the relations of social intercourse — is 
evident from the half- smothered restlessness and dis- 
content which are ready at this moment to burst out 
into a flame over one half of Europe. The organic 
law seems yet hidden from us, that would re- construct 
the social chaos, and bind together its warring ele- 
ments in order and harmony. On this vital point in- 
quiries in every direction must henceforth converge. 
Here must centre for mutual enlargement and cor- 
rection, the lessons of history, the deductions of the- 
ory, and the results of experience. It is easy to point 
to what is evil and threatening. Who will propose a 
comprehensive remedy, that meets the manifold dif- 
ficulties of this complicated case ? Perhaps, in the first 
instance we look too far and too wide. We neglect the 

l 2 



220 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 



faithful application of simple principles. YTe over- 
look the wisdom that is shut up in every man's own 
conscience. This is certain • nothing can be done 
without a recurrence before everything else to strict 
justice in all the departments of human intercourse. 

Hitherto it has been the usual effect of civilization, 
to accumulate enormous masses of private wealth by 
the side of dark depths of abject poverty, and to bring 
the extreme grades of society into the unhappy rela- 
tionship of a class which enjoys without exertion 
everything which art and industry can bestow, and a 
class which has nothing but the miserable dole which 
it accepts from charity. Mistaken views of Religion 
consecrate this relationship, and would fain perpe- 
tuate it. They teach men to look on it as the nor- 
mal and permanent condition of society. They foster 
the absurd and very presumptuous notion, that the 
dependent and necessitous ought always to exist, if 
only to afford an object for the sentimentalities and 
alms of the rich. There is an unchristian pride in 
the very assumption which such views imply. Put 
forth in the name, they are at war with the spirit, of 
the Gospel. To give largely, where the means are 
large and where no personal sacrifice is incurred, may 
not rise above the questionable merit of non-resist- 
ance to the strong impulse of a compassionate instinct : 
and where beneficence assumes the form of lordly 
almsgiving or profuse hospitality, it may be so deeply 
blended with a consciousness of superiority and the 
inward flattery of self- applause, that possibly in no 
other circumstances are the humanities of life less 
felt and the spirit of Christian brotherhood more com- 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 



221 



pletely extinct. I am far from underrating the ge- 
nuine munificence which flo^s from a large and noble 
heart, which aims at morally elevating the objects of 
its sympathy, and measures all its outgoings by a 
thoughtful reference to that end. And yet, perhaps, 
the purest love of man may be shown, where there is 
absolutely nothing to give. To embrace the world 
into whose lap we have been thrown, lovingly— to 
take our part earnestly and hopefully in its joint la- 
bours and generous emulations, without envy and 
without contempt, without greedy encroachment or 
selfish repining — heartily rejoicing to promote all that 
is good — knowing our proper vocation, content with 
our appointed place, and cultivating faithfully the 
talent, whatever it be, that God has entrusted to us 
— this is a severer test and a surer witness of the 
true Christian spirit, than the unreflecting dispersion 
of treasures whose loss is not felt and can be easily 
replaced. This calls out more strongly the healthful 
consciousness, that we are all men, and born for our 
specific task — bound together as fellow- workers by a 
common tie of human brotherhood. This is that true 
justice which is identical with the spirit of an enlarged 
charity. This is, in the highest sense, doing as we 
would be done by. It is what our Lord, called it— 
the Law and the Prophets — the sum and substance 
of practical Religion. 

The world unfortunately has chosen to pursue an 
opposite course. The spirit of injustice is abroad — 
at work in our laws, our institutions, our manners, 
, and our opinions. We first sin by wholesale against 
each other's rights ; and when crime, poverty, wretch- 
edness, and discontent are the result, a bustling, os- 



222 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

tentatious charity steps in to resist it and set matters 
right. Nor is the injustice less certain or less perni- 
cious^ becanse thousands perpetrate it unconsciously, 
walking without thought in the evil courses traced 
out for them by their fathers. Our many iniquities 
in small things scatter broadcast the seeds of innu- 
merable evils. Our selfish indolence and indifference 
allow enormous abuses to grow to a head, and im- 
mense classes to lapse into a heathenish barbarism ; 
— and then we try to stem the rushing torrent by expe- 
dients which reach not its source, and which, if they 
do not increase its violence, only turn it into a new 
direction and spread it over a wider surface. The 
word must be spoken : we want more justice, and 
less charity. In proof of our national benevolence, 
we point exultingiy to our endless eleemosynary in- 
stitutions, and we say — e Behold the monuments of 
our charity ! What sorrow of humanity is left un- 
redressed in this Christian land?' But that such 
things should be necessary at all, and still more that 
there should be increasing demand for them — is in 
reality less an honour to our Christianity, than a re- 
flection upon it; for they prove, that there exists 
somewhere a gross violation or neglect of social duty. 
What we need, is the development of a higher phi- 
lanthropy that is superior to mere passive impression, 
and aims with wise and energetic forethought at put- 
ting all men in a condition, and furnishing them with 
a stimulus, to raise and improve themselves — to be- 
come self-sustaining and self-dependent. At present, 
the individual is often crushed by circumstances. He 
cannot rise, if he would. There is the force of hos- 
tile masses acting against him, which his single energy 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 



223 



cannot overcome. "We must endeavour to heave the 
burden off his shoulders, and give expansion to his 
latent powers. 

The question will be asked, what can the State 
accomplish — what can private benevolence effect — in 
furtherance of this object ? We have been taught to 
expect too much, from laws and government ; and what 
they can give, we often look for through a wrong me- 
dium — through wide, organic change. Let us profit 
by experience. Where such change has been made, 
to the utmost extent which sanguine theorists could 
desire — what has been the fruit ? In what respect 
are the millions easier and happier than they were 
before ? — The well-being of a community results from 
the joint influence of innumerable causes operating 
through many generations, and can never flow from 
the simple effect of one great change however neces- 
sary or successful. Forms of government are histo- 
rical growths, with principles latent in them, no 
doubt, that must be more and more developed in 
accordance with enlightened theory; but under any 
circumstances, their value consists less in what they 
can directly do for men, than in what they allow and 
encourage men to do for themselves. They are rather 
the conditions, than the causes, of social prosperity. 
Taking what exists, therefore, and is in harmony with 
our national character and traditional institutions, as 
a basis of action, let us turn to practical possibilities 
that lie within our reach. Let our first demand be, 
the application of the simple rule of Christian justice 
to all affairs of state, producing throughout society 
the profound contentment of a conviction, that the 



224 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



interests of every class, however humble and obscure, 
are duly felt and acknowledged, and protected with 
as jealous a care as those of the most distinguished 
and powerful. 

Under this general provision, three objects seem 
alone of sufficient importance to require a special 
mention. — (1.) The elevation of the lowest class and 
the extinction of pauperism must be promoted by 
every stimulus that can be given to industry, and. by 
offering facilities for the accumulation and invest- 
ment of property in small masses. It is an alarming 
symptom, when wealth is viewed by multitudes as an 
injurious monopoly. Wealth should be widely ra- 
mified through all classes ; and the feeling of envy 
will then cease. For this purpose, let industry be 
released from its remaining fetters ; that in the great 
equilibrium of demand and supply that must ulti- 
mately establish itself over the whole earth, employ- 
ment may steadily continue with as much uniformity, 
as it is possible for any institution affected by human 
contingencies to obtain. Let government take away 
all artificial inducements to the confinement of large 
amounts of property in a few hands, and render its 
conveyance inexpensive and secure. Let every op- 
portunity be afforded for the conversion of earnings 
into capital, that the hostile interests which now exist, 
may be gradually extinguished, -and the two classes 
of capitalists and workmen pass off by imperceptible 
degrees into each other. This would only be the in- 
troduction of an intermediate grade in manufacturing 
society, similar to that which the yeoman once occu- 
pied on the soil between the labourer and the gentle- 



MOKE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 



225 



man.* — (2.) Let universal education, by whatever 
means and on whatever conditions the present state 
of society may render its attainment practicable — 
provide for the mind of every class, what free industry 
procures for the body — -the nourishment that is need- 
ful to its growth — such a free development of the 
faculties by the infusion of wholesome instruction, as 
will fix the principles and settle the character on a 
moral and religious basis. — (3.) Let the principle of 
self-government be so distributed through all the ele- 
ments of social organization, that some individuals of 
every class may have the opportunity of taking part 
in local administration, and so diffuse through the 
body of the people a strong and binding sense of 
common interest. — Such is, perhaps, the utmost that 
the state can accomplish, to aid the free growth and 
independent development of the mass of the popula- 
tion. 

Private influence is less marked and less thought 
of; but it is more penetrating and more diffusive. 
Politics and Political Economy have done much to 
put the old-fashioned notions of morals out of coun- 

* ' The yeoman,' — says Fuller, with characteristic quaintness — 
i is a gentleman in ore, whom the next age may see refined ; and is 
the wax capable of a gentle impression, when the prince shall stamp 
it, Wise Solon would surely have pronounced the English yeo- 
manry a fortunate condition, living in the temperate zone, betwixt 
greatness and want, an estate of people almost peculiar to England. 
France and Italy are like a die, which hath no points between six 
and ace, nobility and peasantry. In England the temple of honour 
is bolted against none who have passed through the temple of virtue ; 
nor is a capacity to be genteel denied to our yeoman who thus be- 
haves himself.' — The Holy State, B. II. ch. xviii. 

L 3 



228 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 

tenance. Some theorists are so enlightened as to 
have given up all belief in a conscience, The Econo- 
mical School is hardly yet extinct, which made wealth 
of such importance, and so completely identified with 
it the whole value and significance of human life, that 
people might well suppose, they had done all which 
could be reasonably demanded of them, when they 
had increased to the utmost the amount of annual 
production. Prejudices like these have lowered the 
moral tone of public opinion. The possessor of an 
improvable nature and an immortal soul, has been 
lost sight of in the calculations which reckoned him 
as an unit of so much political influence or industrial 
power. It is consolatory to observe, that these nar- 
row views are on the decline. It is now seen, that 
they include only a part of the conditions which enter 
into the great social problem. Everywhere men are 
awakening to a juster sense of their claims on each 
other. The relation of an employer to his workpeople, 
for instance, is admitted now to involve moral as well 
as economical considerations. It is felt to be a trust of 
vast influence for good or for evil ; and for his use of 
it, the holder is deemed amenable to public opinion 
and responsible to God. It is a relation which 
honour, kindness, humanity, the strictest justice — 
should consecrate and make fruitful of blessing to 
the two parties which it unites.- In the hurry and 
eagerness of selfish competition, we underrate the si- 
lent influence of moral character. A high example 
of fairness and integrity goes a long way in satisfying 
and tranquillizing the popular mind. It inspires re- 
spect, awakens moral sympathy, and predisposes to 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 227 

concessions even where they are seen to draw sa- 
crifices after tliem. On the other hand, meanness, 
trickery, harshness, oppression — rouse the inner man 
into suspicion and hostility — instil the poisonous 
drops which turn the native sweetness of humanity 
into bitter gall, and confound in one deep, dark, 
smouldering passion of indiscriminate hate, the just 
and the unjust of the entire class which its own evil 
members have thus wickedly made odious. 

When will men trust more to moral qualities than 
to the magic of gold, for their weight in society and 
their influence over the classes which they desire to 
control ? There are some whom the prospect of a 
small additional gain tempts irresistibly to push an 
opportunity to the utmost, yea to the very verge of 
dishonesty, against those whom circumstances have 
brought under their power. Does it never occur to 
such men to contrast with this pitiful advantage, the 
superior comfort of living in conscious security, — 
honoured and respected in the midst of thousands 
who trust their word and rely on their justice, and 
look up to them as the dispensers of an employment 
which nourishes from its fair remuneration a wide 
community of comfortable and contented homes ? — 
A redundant population reduces the value of labour, 
and enables the employer to engage it at wages which 
barely suffice for the minimum of subsistence. And 
if the constant extension of trade and a monopoly of 
the markets of the world be thought the only crite- 
rion of national prosperity — such a condition of the 
labouring class may seem necessary and even advan- 
tageous. But if it pours in gains on one side, it draws 



228 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



off expenditure in equal measure on the other. It 
burdens capital with the heavy charge of pauperism, 
and encircles civilization with anxiety and fear. A 
population exceeding the demands of adequate em- 
ployment, tends from the sheer effect of misery to 
perpetuate itself with steady increase, and to become 
continually more and more degraded. Smaller pro- 
fits and the slower accumulation of large fortunes — if 
such be the only means of checking so frightful a 
state of things — would be richly compensated in the 
view of every thoughtful man, by a profounder feel- 
ing of safety and the sight of more contentment and 
happiness. Indeed, no efforts and no sacrifices could 
be too great to relieve society from the load with which 
pauperism oppresses it, and to rouse the masses by 
every stimulus that can be applied to them, by every 
help and encouragement from their superiors, in 
worldly position — to a vigorous struggle for self- de- 
liverance and self-renovation. 

The enlightened and benevolent head of a large 
establishment which furnishes employment to hun- 
dreds, has means and opportunities of moral influ- 
ence at his disposal — the more effectual, because they 
are indirect and grow out of the real business of life— 
which the theoretical philanthropist cannot command, 
and may well envy. Yet there are cases where such 
means are abused, and such opportunities are neg- 
lected, by men who rush with hypocritical incon- 
sistency after remote and fantastic objects for the 
display of their benevolence. What God offers them 
they reject; and then run over half the world, to 
make a duty for themselves. They will harass, op- 



MORE JUSTICE A1\D LESS CHARITY. 



229 



press, brow-beat, trample down and crush some poor 
and helpless wretch whom fortune has thrown at their 
feet, and whom a small remission of their hard-wrung 
gains might have filled with heart and hope to resume 
once more the steep ascent to decency and comfort : 
— and then, when conscience smites them, roused, it 
may be, by the stimulating fanaticism of the pulpit, 
they will compound for these daily, deep-penetrating 
sins by some splendid contribution to an intolerant 
association, or profuse demonstration of zeal for phi- 
lanthropy at the antipodes. These are the fatal courses 
which foster misery and pauperism, and substitute a 
show of charity for the substance of justice. Let 
thoughtful men awake to the full consciousness of 
their Christian duty — not to give more — but by their 
example, their influence, their encouragement, their 
friendly intercourse and wise advice, to put the suf- 
fering and dependent classes in a condition to demand 
less. Let them strive to lift up the many, who are 
now almost slaves under the imperious domination 
of capital — to the rank of friends and fellow-workers, 
independent citizens and Christian brethren. 

For this object no subversion of existing relations 
and no violent fusion of classes is necessary. Let 
society freely unfold itself in its many-sided fulness, 
and in the graduated order which results from the 
spontaneous workings of nature ; — law simply pro- 
viding, that one class shall not encroach upon and 
oppress another, that the few shall not rob the many, 
nor the many tyrannize over the few. What is wanted 
is a sense of mutual dependence and the feeling of 
mutual respect between all classes. No class would 
suffer more from the attempt to equalize all social 



230 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

distinctions, than the lowest. The motive to rise 
would be taken from themselves, and those now 
above them would be drawn down to their level. 
The great principle of c doing to others as we would 
they should do to us/ so far from being violated, is 
in its spirit applied and enforced by the preservation 
in the upper ranks, of the highest possible standard 
of manners, refinement, mental culture and moral 
principle. Such an example diffuses a feeling which 
checks barbarism and coarseness in the subordinate 
grades of life ; and when every artificial obstacle is 
removed, and a general impulse to self- development is 
excited, holds out to superior minds in the humblest 
sphere, a standard of excellence after which to aspire. 
It is the condition of a thorough elevation of tone 
throughout society, that all should have access to this 
highest circle, who can prove their qualification for 
it. It should be kept select only by the exclusion 
of rudeness, ignorance, and profligacy. None should 
be shut out by the impassable barriers of caste ; none 
pronounced inadmissible, in consequence of their re- 
ligious persuasion. Education should be so widely 
spread — all the avenues to merit should be so freely 
opened — the motives to exertion should be so uni- 
versally diffused — that the seed of genius may be 
quickened into life wherever it is hid, and noble spi- 
rits rise with unobstructed course from the lowliest 
origin to the distant eminence where nature intended 
them to reign. Thus all the elements of good would 
ascend like a genial exhalation and gather round the 
summit of society, at once clothing it with radiant 
glory, and dropping freshness and strength on the 
broad expanded slopes below. 



231 



XV. 

SIMPLICITY Or HEART. 

Romans x. 10. 
M With the heart man belieyeth unto righteousness/ 5 

These words express the fundamental idea of Chris* 
tianity — that faith is a condition of the affections/ 
yielding the fruits of a holy and upright life. It is 
with the heart that man believeth ; and the issue is 
righteousness and acceptance with God. The great 
distinction of the Gospel, is the inwardness of its mo- 
rality. Whatever men show to the world in speech 
or act, takes its quality in the Christian view from 
the state of mind out of which it proceeds. In the 
science of ethics, as a discipline for the outward life, 
the heathen schools have left us nothing to accom- 
plish. Every speculative question has been antici- 
pated and exhausted by them. What they wanted, 
was the motive power — the vital link connecting will 
with affection. This is furnished by the religion 
of the prophet of Xazareth. The philosophies of an- 
tiquity addressed themselves to the intellect ; the 
simple words of Jesus lay hold of the heart. How 
unlike are the Christians of the first century to the 
many acute and accomplished men who frequented 
the court of the Csesars ! How strikingly different, 



232 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



for example, are the fervour, simplicity and zeal of 
the chosen and separated few who listened to the 
teachings of Paul or John, and all whose virtues 
were the spontaneous outgoing of a trustful and lov- 
ing heart, from the cold and artificial but exquisitely 
polished intellect of Seneca ! We may be unjust to 
both parties, if we estimate them from the wrong 
point of view. In clearness of ideas, in precision of 
language, in all that results from scientific culture of 
mind, the heathens have immeasurably the advantage. 
But for access to the deepest sources of human feeling 
— for vivid apprehension of spiritual realities — for in- 
timacy with the most hidden operations of conscience 
— for a quick, intuitive sense of the invisible workings 
of God — we recognize a power and an insight in the 
early Christians, which fill the mind with wonder ap- 
proaching to awe, and stand out in marked and signifi- 
cant contrast with the limitation of their knowledge, 
the unskilfulness of their reasoning, and their uncri- 
tical and infantine credulity. Tried by a purely in- 
tellectual standard, the first professors of our faith 
would run the risk of being repudiated as ignorant 
enthusiasts. Brought to the inner test of moral and 
religious feeling, the hollow rhetoric of the courtly 
sophist repels all cordial sympathy. The sentence in 
each case depends on the temper of the judge. Gib- 
bon would doubtless hold up Seneca in advantageous 
comparison with Polycarp or Clement. George Fox 
and Buny an would as surely turn away unsatisfied 
from the pointed antithesis and elaborate ingenuity 
of the preceptor of Nero, to seek a more congenial 
nutriment in the deep truth and earnest faith and 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



233 



strong affection which still glow with a vital heat in 
every relic of the apostolic age. 

Christianity has reversed the judgments of man- 
kind respecting the order and subordination of the 
constituent elements of our nature — placing first and 
foremost the conscience and affections as subjected to 
the sovereign law of duty, and ranking under them 
the knowing and reasoning faculties as designed for 
the search after truth. Moral light must be inter- 
mingled with intellectual light, to conduct us safely 
through our mortal course. For 'if the light that 
is in thee, be darkness' — as infallibly it must, where 
moral considerations are absent — 'how great is that 
darkness ! 3 But the due relation of these two powers 
— the moral and the intellectual — it is not always so 
easy to preserve. The doctrine affirmed in the text, 
is often misunderstood. Churches still exist, where 
feeling is allowed to overpower reason, and on pre- 
tence of religious grounds all intellectual freedom and 
activity are forbidden. When reaction comes with 
the rise of a spirit of inquiry, men are thrown into 
the opposite extreme, and begin to exalt reason above 
feeling. They become hard, captious, and self-opi- 
nionated. • It is all at once the fashion to affect inde- 
pendence and originality of mind. Nothing is now 
heard of but the rights of intellect . Hence the growth 
of a popular cant, rapidly propagated from mouth to 
mouth. For cant is the adoption of some notion at 
second-hand, and the bustling promulgation of it, with- 
out any corresponding depth and steadiness of convic- 
tion. It is forgotten, that the number of those who 
can really strike out new and original ideas, ever has 
been, and ever must be, exceedingly small, 



234 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



Tendencies of this description pervade at the pre- 
sent time to a large extent, the younger portion of 
society. There is amongst them a great distrust of 
old dogmas ; a weariness of all established usage ; a 
feverish thirst for novelty as such ; and with the growth 
of an earnest spirit, conscious of many and great evils 
that oppress the world, a precipitate eagerness, not 
wholly inexcusable, to catch at every specious theory 
that promises to relieve them. But the good that ex- 
ists in such tendencies, readily turns into evil. Com- 
plaint and scepticism, mixed with some presumption, 
infect the public sentiment. Original intellects waste 
their strength in profuse wailing and unmeasured con- 
tempt. Inferior minds take up the strain, and scorn 
to use the old phrases and believe the old truths. They 
strangely set up for originals by slavishly squaring 
their modes of thought and their very forms of speech 
to the pattern prescribed for them by some idolized 
authority. They assume a mission from heaven to 
regenerate the old world, and prove their fitness for 
it by despising everybody and abusing everything. 
On all who do not embrace their views and swear by 
their oracle, they look down with ineffable disdain, as 
very ordinary and ignorant people, scarce worthy of 
notice and not deserving a refutation. It is their 
folly to effect originality at any cost. Nothing more 
deeply offends them, than the imputation of the com- 
monplace. Our popular literature has not escaped 
the contagion. The simplest truths cannot be ex- 
pressed in a simple way. Good taste is despised as a 
sign of mediocrity. Good manners are ridiculed as 
a weak concession to conventionalism. Good sense 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



235 



is spurned as incompatible with original strength of 
intellect. Exaggeration, coarseness, false and mon- 
strous sentiment, pompons obscurity of phrase that 
hides meanness of conception under an air of pro- 
fundity, and an incessant straining after novelty that 
often destroys at one blow simple truth and pure 
English — are mistaken by numbers for the tokens of 
genius, and hailed as indications of the approaching 
millennium, when all the littleness and prejudice of 
the past shall be thrown aside, and a new and more 
glorious career open before the emancipated soul. 

True originality of mind cannot be too highly esti- 
mated, whatever form it may assume; nor can the 
undoubted prerogative of real genius ever be disputed, 
to soar in its own strength, to use its own speech, 
and to walk in its own ways. For one grain of the 
pure gold of genius, we might well put up with much 
that is coarse and valueless in the matter which holds 
it. But what we have a right to protest against, is 
the assumption of genius where it does not exist ; the 
affectation of originality in very ordinary minds ; the 
repudiation of the commonplace in characters which 
only assert their claim to it by disregarding common 
sense and violating common decorum. Even genius 
has no chartered license to wander away from the 
eternal landmarks of morality and the safe guidings 
of traditional propriety. — Much more, then, will the 
vast residue of mankind find their only safety and 
their genuine respectability in cultivating simplicity 
of heart, in adhering to the dictates of a healthy mo- 
ral sentiment, in fulfilling patiently and earnestly the 
duties that lie next to them, in their allotted sphere 



236 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

of action and sympathy. True wisdom is to c believe 
with the heart unto righteousness ; 9 in other words, to 
love and cherish purity and uprightness for their own 
sakes — to believe in them entirely — to speak and act 
in them undoubtingly — and to make the outward so 
fully express the inward man, that both may be ap- 
proved to the omniscient eye of God. No character 
formed on such principles can be commonplace. It 
will fill its appointed station ; wear its proper aspect ; 
do its fitting work • and be noble and beautiful in its 
way. Such is the charm and the worth of genuine 
simplicity of character. Observe the economy of na- 
ture. Everything is beautiful, if left where nature 
meant it to be. Mark the variegated hues that spread 
with exquisite transition from the broken surface of 
the precipitous rock across the slope of the brown 
heath into the green bosom of the undulating vale. 
See how they ail blend in richest harmony, and yield 
a soft diffusive beauty to which the minutest lichen 
and the tenderest blade of grass and the most delicate 
flower, not less than the massive shade of the forest 
and the bright expanse of winding stream, contribute 
their share. Compare this spontaneous loveliness with 
the contorted forms and elaborate patchwork of the 
artificial grotto, where knotted roots and dried flowers 
and pebbles and moss are wrought into fantastic mo- 
saic; — and you will perceive how studied efforts at 
originality mar the beauty that grows out of the sim- 
plicity of nature. Let not man then overlook this 
great lesson of nature. Let him be content to be 
what he is, and where he is, in the grand simplicity 
of the divine plan ■ and his character will always be 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



237 



beautiful. It will give its due share of colour and 
sweetness to the pervading harmonies of creation. 
Nay, if a seed of power be actually within it, and the 
order of the divine influences be obediently followed, 
it may put forth higher qualities, and assume a more 
striking aspect, and become, when God demands it, at 
the fitting season, original and great. 

The apostolic doctrine is brought out in the text 
by the peculiar significance and mutual relation of 
three prominent terms — heart, belief, righteousness. 
Righteousness is the state of mind and character which 
makes us acceptable to God. Belief implies the prin- 
ciples which form and govern the character. Heart 
expresses the feelings of love and interest with which 
those principles are adopted and acted on. Simplicity 
and heartiness are the feelings here described — sim- 
plicity looking to what is purely right, heartiness ta- 
king it up with earnestness and devotion. Let every 
character cultivate these qualities. There will then be 
no fear of the commonplace ; and society will be rid 
of affectation and pretence. What a charm there is 
about the person who is content to appear what he 
really is, and to fill his proper place in the world with- 
out envy or contempt ! There is a serene truthfulness 
in his whole manner and language, which wins our 
confidence and puts us at our ease. Through his trans- 
parent words we can see into the feelings that are at 
work in the bottom of his heart. There is a beauty 
which a pure moral taste will at once discern in the 
adaptation of such a character to its circumstances — 
in the mutual correspondence of its relations and its 
affections — in its quiet harmony with the order and 



238 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

arrangements of Providence. We perceive at a glance 
what a grace and even a dignity, genuine simplicity 
of mind and quiet rectitude of purpose confer on cha- 
racters that are not made conspicuous either by ele- 
vated station or by brilliancy of endowment. 

Heart and conscience require indeed the support 
and guidance of the understanding. But wherever 
the former are fully awakened and exert a predomi- 
nant sway, they impose the duty of calling forth and 
cultivating to the utmost the intellectual faculties as 
the means and instruments of wisdom. Moral and 
spiritual affections never unfold themselves without 
some corresponding development of intelligence; but 
the intellectual powers may be exercised, to the neg- 
lect and stifling of the moral and spiritual. When 
these are ascendant in the character, they rouse the 
intellect to healthful action and impel it in the right 
direction, without letting it wander astray in pursuit 
of mischievous or delusive objects. Many a mind is 
urged by ambition and vanity and envy to enterprises 
beyond its strength, which only lead to abortive ef- 
forts and terminate in disappointment and misery. 
Whereas simplicity of heart will reveal to us the one 
talent (if it be no more) that has been confided to our 
charge, and incite us to cultivate it with religious 
faithfulness. What is inherent in the character and 
constitutes its specific gift, will then be sure to come 
out and do its work, and occupy a place in the eco- 
nomy of providence, which no other character perhaps 
under the same circumstances could so beneficially 
fill. It is no groundless assumption, that to every 
character its fitting position and appropriate function 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART, 



239 



have been assigned in the grand arrangements of om- 
niscient wisdom — subject of course to man's upright 
and intelligent exercise of the free agency entrusted 
to him ; for this alone Trill show him what his true 
vocation is, and enable him to appropriate it. We 
miss the duty that belongs to us, for want of simpli- 
city of mind — from ignorance of ourselves and a rest- 
less ambition to be what we are not. 

Seek out, then, the work which God intended for 
thee ; fulfil it earnestly and faithfully • and thou wilt 
be honoured and blest. To find it, thou must not 
cast an envious eye at the lofty and glittering pinna- 
cles of this world's greatness. Look rather within. 
Consult thy own heart. Listen to the voice of con- 
science. Ponder well the ever-recurring suggestions of 
thy calm and serious moments. Behold where God 
has placed thee. Examine dispassionately what he 
has given to thee -without and within. Ask thyself 
what good can be done — what evil averted — what 
knowledge acquired — what truth sought after — what 
happiness diffused — in that little circle which bounds 
in thy present being. Fill it up to its limits, with 
earnest, faithful duty — with pure and reverent love ; 
and its circumference will gradually expand, and a 
new horizon will widen round thee. If God has 
buried a richer talent within thee, and has nobler 
work for thee here to do, his hand will bear thee up- 
ward to a higher stage, and cause thee to move in a 
larger sphere. Thou wilt be spared a fall from the 
giddy heights of a treacherous ambition ; for thy way 
will be secured beneath thee : and thy power at every 
step will be equal to thy aspiration. 



240 CHRISTIAN ASPECS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



Genius is a rare gift. Its visits to earth are ' few 
and far between/ For the multitude of men it is un- 
speakable presumption, to affect its prerogatives and 
claim its privileges. Yet, if there be any assignable 
process to draw it forth, where it may lie hidden and 
oppressed— if there be any method to give it a deeper 
and holier influence on the hearts and minds of men ; 
it is the expulsion of the affectation and prejudice 
which buoy up such numbers with chimerical hopes, 
and lead them astray from real duties in the chase 
of phantoms — it is the infusion into society of more 
reverence and love for simplicity and genuineness of 
character. It should be the first object of education, to 
form a pure heart, high principle, an earnest and in- 
genuous spirit. If all intellectual accomplishments be 
kept subordinate to these great moral ends, and the 
development of the character be allowed to follow the 
beneficent order of nature ; the various tendencies and 
aptitudes of different minds will unfold themselves in 
their peculiar strength, and enrich with new elements 
the spiritual resources of the world. At present innu- 
merable prejudices obstruct in various ways a com- 
plete extraction of the mental and moral wealth la- 
tent in society. They can~only be dispelled by a pro- 
founder respect for all honest labour, and a more dis- 
criminating regard in our social economy to the fit- 
ness of different minds for different works. Original 
diversities of spiritual organization have not been suf- 
ficiently considered in our prevalent modes of culture. 
We have subjected all minds to one system, and do 
not leave free scope for the unfolding of the simple, 
earnest, devoted character. The principle of the di- 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



241 



vision of labour, to which so much of our existing 
civilization is due, must ultimately have some refer- 
ence to the inherent tastes and capacities of various 
minds. But a false estimate of respectability — the as- 
sumption, that only certain kinds of employment are 
genteel and honourable — has narrowed for thousands 
their sphere of useful activity in the world, and li- 
mited in a correspondent degree their course of pre- 
paratory education. We can only hope, that freedom 
and progress will rectify these mistakes, and by re- 
moving the constraint of artificial pressure, give full 
expansion to the diversity of nature's gifts. 

It may not indeed be literally true, that every mind 
brings with it into the world a special vocation from 
Providence. Some minds command circumstances; 
others are rather moulded by them : though in every 
case, there is more of reaction between mind and 
circumstance than a superficial view would indicate. 
Fourier in his theory of social regeneration has doubt- 
less carried to an absurd and impracticable extent, 
the notion of adjusting employment to aptitude, and 
of fitting to every outward function in life its exact 
counterpart of mental organization. His whole con- 
ception of the subject is too necessarian, and by re- 
ducing to a minimum the principle of human freedom 
and self- development, transfers to society what should 
be the work of the individual. Still a great and fruit- 
ful idea dimly pervades his eccentric speculations ; and 
it is this obscure mixture of truth with error, which 
lends them a delusive fascination. The error we are 
not bound to accept ; but truth from whatever quar- 
ter we may cordially greet. When moral consiclera- 

M 



242 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 

tions shall take precedence of all others in education 
- — when a simple, truthful, earnest mind shall be re- 
garded as its worthiest fruit — the predominance of 
duty in the view of life, and a thoughtful comparison 
of fitnesses within with claims and opportunities with- 
out, will sufficiently make clear to every one, where 
duty lies and how it must be performed, and effect 
that vital harmony of the mind with its circumstances, 
which is the condition of the most productive labour, 
the means of evolving the largest amount of intellec- 
tual force and originality, and the most fertile source 
of happiness. 

Do you suspect within yourself the latent instinct 
of genius ? Break not away from the clearly-defined 
path of duty. Be true to the spiritual monitor within . 
Know that wherever true genius lurks, it will reveal 
itself most effectually in harmony with the suggestions 
of your moral nature — -that pride, envy, sensuality, 
hard and cynical unbelief, must waste its oil and finally 
quench its flame. Strive to be a simple, honest, faith- 
ful man : whatever hidden talent you possess, will 
then come forth in its genuineness, and exert all its 
power. Every success you could reasonably desire, 
will be surely yours; and the bitterest mortification 
that might else await you, you will happily be spared. 
You may not be distinguished, but you will escape 
disappointment. You may lose a temporary noto- 
riety which you would not have deserved ; . but you 
will secure that inward peace and dignity of spirit, 
which are the just reward of a true and simple heart. 

It is impossible to check considerations which take 
our thoughts beyond the tomb. Perhaps the deepest 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



243 



faith utters the fewest words, and is most averse to 
point out in definite form and bright colours, the 
possibilities of distant and unknown scenes. But 
there are a few impressions that force themselves on 
our spiritual consciousness, and will enter into all our 
speculations on the solemn and awful theme. Viewed 
in the light of immortality, we look on this earthly- 
existence as a discipline of preparation, and on cha- 
racter acquired here as the condition of happiness 
hereafter— character representing and expressing the 
inward man from which all the disguises of a worldly 
respectability and distinction will be finally stripped 
away. If then there be one form of character which 
an instinctive feeling teaches us to recognize as more 
qualified than another for the great transition of death 
— it is the simple, the truthful, and the pure. All 
Christ's assurances and illustrations plainly declare 
this. It was the unconscious innocence of childhood 
which he held up to his disciples, as the fittest type on 
earth of the blessed inhabitants of heaven. The pride, 
the avarice, the ambition, the voluptuousness, that 
are here cloaked under reputable and sanctimonious 
forms, when they are brought up to that last tribunal, 
will be exposed to view before the searching glance of 
God, and their unfitness for the pure atmosphere of 
the heavenly world, made plain even to themselves. 
They will stand convicted in their own eyes. The 
soul will become its own judge and its own exe- 
cutioner.— But the quiet, simple, genuine virtue that 
grew contentedly on its own soil and wore its natural 
hue on earth, will have no false appearances to cast 
aside. Unveiled in native innocence it will bend 

m 2 



244 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

humbly and confidingly before its Maker, with no in- 
curable remorse for the past and no overwhelming 
dread about the future. Truth had been its security 
in time; and truth Trill be its warrant through eter- 
nity. Led on by a Providential hand; it will take its 
place and enter on its vocation in that world of en- 
during blessedness, where all the pure in heart shall 
for ever behold their God. 



345 



XVI. 

THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OE LIFE, 
Jora xvii. 15. 

" I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the -world, but 
that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." 

It is a common practice with divines to place religion 
and the world in direct antagonism. Nor is this 
wholly the effect of perverse exaggeration. The faith 
of the first Christians, excited by the direct influence 
of so wonderful a phenomenon as the life of Jesus, 
was intense and overwhelming, and expressed itself in 
vehement re- action against the prevailing tendencies 
of an exceedingly corrupted civilization: and Scripture, 
issuing from the inner depths of their religious life, is 
a glowing transcript of their impressions. It is not 
surprising, therefore, that those who take the Gospel 
precepts and examples hi their literal strictness as im- 
mediately applicable to the present time, should seem 
to discover in them a certain warrant for asceticism, 
which is really at variance with the spirit or Christ's 
own life. To men who had declared war against the 
existing state of society, and believed that a new 
heavens and a new earth would shortly appear — the 
present world could possess little interest and value 
but as a scene of conflict and transition. The expe- 



248 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

rience of centuries has shown, that their views were 
unfounded ; but the vague use of Scripture language 
still upholds opinions in many minds respecting this 
world and its relation to eternity, which are irrecon- 
cilable with a right understanding of our actual duties 
and expectations. A vital truth making heaven a re- 
ality to our inmost consciousness, is not sufficiently 
distinguished from the accidental form, in which the 
circumstances of its original enunciation have moulded 
it. Such a distinction it is the more necessary to 
make, because otherwise, amidst the invincible re- 
monstrances of common sense, it will be impossible 
to secure to the invisible world, a just ascendancy 
over our thoughts. When the spring has been drawn 
down too tight in one direction, the rebound, we know, 
will be violent and dangerous in the other. Periods 
of gloomy superstition and wild fanaticism denying 
the reasonable claims of the present and the actual, 
have ever been followed by outbursts of uncontrolled 
licentiousness, which extinguish the light of heaven 
in the dark fumes of sensuality, and trample all that 
is divine and holy under foot. Men's reason tells 
them, that they are intended for action and enjoyment 
in this present world; and the future which lies be- 
yond it, becomes doubtful, when its attainment is 
made dependent on the renunciation of interests and 
affections which are a necessary growth of the re- 
alities immediately encompassing us. True wisdom 
is to put heaven and earth in their due relation to each 
other, and to harmonize their claims upon us, by 
viewing them as successive stages in one great con- 
nected scheme of spiritual development. Our Lord's 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LITE. 



2i7 



sublime intercession for his followers, transmitted by 
the most spiritual of the Evangelists, conveys to us a 
right apprehension of this matter, and reconciles the 
various conditions of our being ■ ' I pray not that 
thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that 
thou shouldest keep them from the evil/ 

We of this age, it must be confessed, are in no 
great danger of becoming too deeply spiritual. What 
we have rather to guard against, are the absorbing 
influences of a material civilization, and the too violent 
resistance of the practical reason to those demands of 
an entire renunciation of the world, which are still 
put forth in loose, traditional phrase from the pulpit, 
without any response in the living credence and sym- 
pathy of the popular heart. Plain, strong intellects, 
unaffected by any great spiritual sensibility — such as 
the most powerful workings of the day throw up in 
great abundance on the surface of society — repel with 
no disguised contempt the customary exhortations on 
this subject, as so much idle, professional discourse. 
Men's actions and avowed aims, if not their very 
words, say distinctly enough ; — ( You bid us give up 
the world, and come to the only fountains of true 
knowledge. Why, the knowledge of the world is worth 
all other knowledge ; it deals with realities, for which 
you offer us but shadows and dreams/ 

There is enough of truth in this representation to 
render doubly seductive the fallacy which it involves. 
For there is a fluent declamation about things spiri- 
tual, which means absolutely nothing : and there is a 
knowledge of the world — in other words, of the pre- 
sent facts of our existence — which cannot be too 



248 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AXD DUTY. 



highly appreciated. But different ideas may be con- 
veyed under the same terms. What is often under- 
stood by a knowledge of the world, enfeebles instead 
of invigorating the character, infuses prejudices of 
the worst kind, and overclouds the mind, at last with 
spiritual darkness. Knowledge of this description is 
in reality only ignorance of the highest truth. For 
man is placed by the constitution of his nature, on 
the limits of the sensuous and the spiritual worlds. 
Wisdom requires, that he should embrace both in his 
view and discern their harmony. But they who 
are specially designated men of the world, like cer- 
tain spirits described by Swedenborg, have their per- 
ceptions open on one side only of their being. What 
is beneath them, they see ; what they have in common 
with the animal, affects them as reality : but to the 
vast spiritual universe above and around them, filled 
with light and resonant with melody, their eye is 
closed and their ear is stopped. 

Great mischief may result from a perverse mis- 
statement of what is to be understood by a knowledge 
of the world. Advice like this has sometimes fallen 
from lips reputed wise : — ' Let a youth see life ; let 
him purge off his appetites and passions in a few years 
of free indulgence, and give the animal the rein ; he 
will come to his senses at last, and know better how 
to deal with men and things, from this foregone ex- 
perience of what they really are/ What is the plain 
English of this ? A young man will gain the truest 
knowledge of the world, not by keeping his vision 
clear and unobstructed, to gain a wide view of- facts 
in all their bearings, but by the hazardous surrender 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 



249 



of his moral freedom to the strongest forces that can 
hold it captive, and from which he may never after- 
wards get free. 

Let us examine this advice, which has often passed 
current for wisdom. To simplify the question, we 
will here put out of view, as of minor importance, 
though still not entirely separable from moral con- 
sequences, the probable mischief of such a course 
to health and outward circumstances, which a total 
change of life in subsequent years may never suffice 
to redress. We will confine our attention to moral 
considerations alone. You plunge into vice, merely, 
as you affirm, to know what it is — simply, as it would 
seem, from a speculative interest in it — with the full 
intention to renounce it soon and throw aside its con- 
taminations. Reflect, then, on the possible results of 
the step which you are about to take. You cannot 
have dealings with the Evil One, and be sure of fling- 
ing him off whenever you like. When he has once 
seized you, he may overpower you and refuse to let 
you go. You run the risk of contracting habits 
whose bonds you may never more be able to dissolve, 
and of subjecting yourself to propensities which may 
keep you a slave for life — of undergoing an enfeeble- 
ment of will and a perversion of view, which may 
prevent you from ever rising again to the erectness of 
moral dignity and seeing things in their true light. 
But suppose this danger were out of the way ; suppose 
it were quite certain, you could return to a pure and 
regular life as soon as you wished : — your theory at the 
outset is fundamentally wrong ; you are seeking know- 
ledge by a method which can only perpetuate iguo- 

m 3 



250 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

ranee. Familiarity with the world's vices can never 
reveal to you the world's great truths, or enable you 
to fathom its deep realities. This assertion may 
surprise you, but it is capable of the strictest proof. 

The system of things to which we belong, and with 
which our duties, interests and hopes are bound up, 
is a vast whole, presenting itself under divers aspects 
to the mind. To understand it, we must view it on 
every side and in all its relations. We cannot better 
describe virtue, than as the ordering of our entire 
life in accordance with the governing law of this system 
- — in other words, the co-operation of our voluntary 
agency with God. To reason wisely, therefore, and 
to act virtuously, we must keep life as a whole before 
us ; and for this purpose, we must largely rely on re- 
corded experience. The axioms of religion and mo- 
rality, emanating from the deep intuitions of prophets 
and sages, and ratified by the collective testimony of 
the human race, exhibit authoritatively to the con- 
science of individuals those large general results of 
practical wisdom, which the impressions of our daily 
life, shut up in a narrow sphere and darkened by the 
influence of sense, would else hinder us from clearly 
apprehending. Only as we live in the light shed on 
us by the whole experience of the past, and firmly 
grasp the religious wisdom which embraces the world 
as a whole, can we discern between the truth and the 
falsehood of things, and distinguish superficial shows 
from fundamental realities. Every mode of life which 
contracts our mental vision and excludes this broader 
light, though it may seem to make us more intimately 
acquainted with a particular order of facts, deadens 



THE THUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 



251 



our perception of the higher truths from which all 
facts receive their right interpretation, and which 
facts of any description are only useful as they serve 
to evolve and express. 

If this reasoning be correct— and to me it seems 
unanswerable — it is evident, we must keep our minds 
in the large and open freedom, which cannot be dis- 
joined from virtuous habits and a serious conviction 
of the moral value of life — in order to gain any know- 
ledge of the world that really deserves the name. 
There is a right and a wrong solution of the great 
problem of our terrestrial existence. The former can- 
not be associated with the low views and grovelling 
appetencies of a vicious life ; the latter at once dis- 
covers its insufficiency in the clear and serene light 
which envelopes a virtuous mind. We cannot adopt 
both solutions at the same time; but if knowledge be 
honestly our object, there is one decisive considera- 
tion to determine our preference. In plunging into 
darkness, we lose all perception of light ; whereas if 
we dwell in light, we have still a distinct apprehension 
of the form and mass and distribution of the shadows 
which limit and surround it. Sin deadens the mind 
to the discernment of what is holy and just : virtue 
has the very opposite effect on the appreciation of 
moral evil. The morally free alone perceive and feel 
what is true and beautiful and good, and alone are 
capable of acting with God in the pursuit and expres- 
sion of them. They alone find happiness in continual 
sympathy with the pure and blessed Spirit that is pre- 
sent in all things. Vice enslaves a man, and destroys 
the individuality of soul which constitutes character ; 



252 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



it dissolves tlie purely human in the instinctive and 
the animal. - * 

Such is the effect of all the 'passions, when released 
from the control of reason and conscience : but the 
lower those passions are, and the less 4hey are con- 
nected with any of the moral and intellectual energies 
of the soid, the more degrading and pernicious is their 
influence on the character. Vice ranges among the 
rudimental constituents of our being, and soon ex- 
hausts them. When it has spent its short-lived force, 
it rapidly gravitates towards the limits which define 
the conditions and restrict the capacities of a merely 
animal existence. Virtue has an unbounded sphere 
opened to it upwards; and into this it presses with 
ceaseless aspirations which are ever taking new forms 
and transferring themselves to higher objects, and 
must be experienced to be understood. When the ex- 
citement of novelty is once over, vice speedily con- 
sumes its materials. Its narrow round of enjoyments 
is soon completed, and is retraced again and again 
with wearisome monotony — habit claiming its cus- 
tomary tribute of stimulus, while the ebbing tide of 
sensibility has continually less and less to supply. To 
comprehend vice, it is unnecessary to be familiar with 
it. Its seeds lie within ourselves, and we are consci- 
ous of them : its fruits are conspicuous to the eye, 
profusely scattered in the world around us. We have 
only, therefore, to watch our own hearts and observe 
the ways of men, to be fully aware, what it is, and 
what it must be. The latent sources of vice are open 
to the immediate inspection of conscience, and we 
have no difficulty in tracing them to their remoter 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE, 



253 



consequences. But such, is the nature of vice, the 
nearer you draw to it, the worse you see it ; for the 
eye is oppressed with a mass of details which lose their 
true meaning and character, when insulated from the 
broader relations which we must stand at a greater 
distance to be able to embrace. One thing only per- 
haps the uninitiated cannot picture to themselves — 
and that is, the agony of remorse, when the soul first 
awakens to the degradation of sin, and painfully at- 
tempts to return to the ways of purity and peace. 
Virtue, on the other hand, is the consciousness and 
the manifestation of the immortal and progressive 
element of our being. We must be intimate with it, 
to know it. Its quality cannot be inferred and conjec- 
tured beforehand. Its outward relations and visible 
aspects convey no adequate idea of what it is. Its 
blessing is all within — in cheerful peace and calm 
contentedness — in the conscious health and vigour of 
the soul — in the presence of kindly and generous 
affections — in that pure indwelling light of heaven 
which brightens and burnishes the outward face of 
things, and brings out its deep significance, and gives 
back, varied and multiplied in endless reflections, the 
beauty that glows in the spirit itself. 

A misapprehension of the true knowledge of life is 
fostered, partly by a natural recoil from the monkish 
renunciation of its healthful pursuits and enjoyments 
which is sometimes enjoined as the only qualification 
for heaven— and partly by the strong interest which 
none can help feeling, in every vivid and faithful de- 
lineation of the workings of human passion. Unprin- 
cipled writers calculate on this craving after excite- 



254 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 

ment, wliich adheres in some degree to all minds, but 
especially to the less educated, and delight to pam- 
per it; and when for this purpose, they entertain 
the public with pictures of unmixed wickedness and 
alluring sensuality, which can only tend to confuse 
the moral perceptions and pervert the sentiments of 
the reader — no language is strong enough to repro- 
bate such monstrous productions, as a hideous dis- 
turbance of the spiritual harmonies of creation and a 
daring insult to humanity. But setting such excep- 
tional cases aside — it is certainly true, that genius has 
put forth its highest efforts in tracing the course of 
lawless passion, of withering hate, of indomitable re- 
venge, of wild ambition, and of remorseless avarice : 
and it may be asked, how could these wonderful pic- 
tures have been produced, without an experimental 
knowledge of the dark secrets which they disclose? 
Is not the purchase of so deep an insight into the 
mysteries of human nature, worth a few violations of 
the conventional morality of society ? If we analyse 
this question, we shall find in it no vindication of a 
familiarity with vice. For what really fascinates us 
in the darker portraitures of the dramatist and novelist 
■ — is not vice viewed in itself as the end of the repre- 
sentation — but the struggle which it calls forth and 
sustains with purer and nobler tendencies — those 
touches of natural affection, those relentings of human 
tenderness and compassion, those convulsive starts 
and throbbings of a conscience not yet extinguished, 
which deepen our interest in goodness by fearful con- 
trast with the demoniac power that would crush it— 
and that display of a mighty will and a commanding 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE, 



255 



intellect, which invests perverted aims and strong pas- 
sions with a certain character of greatness, and makes 
us look on man even in his degradation and his fall, 
as a being of wonderful and glorious capacity. Take 
away these glimpses of moral significance ; leave pure, 
unredeemed wickedness in their place ; and if your 
own mind be not already corrupted by it, you will turn 
away from the picture in disgust. The attraction is 
not in the evil, but in the good which is so mysteri- 
ously interwoven with it, and which is made more af- 
fecting by its strange accompaniments. Where the 
whole is one dark blot of shade, there can be no pic- 
ture. In the hands of a true artist, shade is only in- 
troduced in subserviency to light : effect, expression, 
beauty depend on light alone. 

When it is affirmed, that those who have so power- 
fully depicted vice, must themselves have been experi- 
mentally acquainted with it — this can only be ad- 
mitted with important qualifications. They must, it 
is true, have penetrated far and wide and deep in the 
ways of the world and seen them with their own eyes 
— had free intercourse with men of every character 
and condition, nor kept aloof from their darkest and 
saddest haunts. No closet-student — no reader of hu- 
manity through books — could ever have become a 
Shakspeare, a Moliere, or a Gothe. They must, no 
doubt, have known vice well and been in frequent 
contact with it, but — such is the protecting influence 
with which the highest genius ever invests the mind 
— without being overmastered or enslaved by it. The 
power of dealing with any agent, implies that we have 
it under our control. To apprehend it distinctly, and 



256 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AXD DUTY. 



be able to analyse it — its bewildering influence over 
us must have ceased, and we must look at it quietly 
from a certain distance. To command any subject 
adequately, we must stand above it. The great men 
who have dissected tiie human heart, and laid bare its 
secrets, and displayed the manners in the broad lights 
and shades of an unceremonious truth, may in their 
darker and more unguarded moments have been borne 
away by the impetuosity of passion, or surrendered 
themselves to the intoxication of vicious indulgence : 
but they must have held the rein of their own im- 
pulses, and been able, when they chose, to bid them 
stop, or the power of their genius to that extent was 
enfeebled and in peril. Only by the light of what was 
still pure and noble in their own minds, could they 
discriminate the true features of vice and hold them 
up to the abhorrence of mankind. Xo writer of real 
genius ever painted vice as an object to be admired 
for itself, or was ever so completely its victim as to 
lose his own moral sense. Genius in its highest func- 
tion cannot coexist with a corrupted moral sentiment. 
Xot that genius and the moral sentiment are coinci- 
dent or necessarily in unison ; for genius is the intui- 
tive perception of what is — moral sentiment, the feel- 
ing of what ought to be : but every function of our 
being, however powerful and creative, must then exert 
its genuine and proper force, when it operates in har- 
mony with the other elements of the complex nature 
to which it belongs. 

This is not to assert, that men of genius have gene- 
rally been men of blameless lives. The fact is con- 
fessedly otherwise. Their passions may be expected to 



THE TRITE KNOWLEDGE OE LIFE. 257 

be strong in proportion to the susceptibility of their 
temperament : — but as a compensation, they are usu- 
ally endowed with a vigour of intellect and a depth of 
moral feeling, if not always with an energy of will, 
which render their occasional aberrations less dan- 
gerous by securing greater facility of return, and in 
most cases suffice to preserve them from utter de- 
gradation. Sometimes good and evil influences are 
so balanced in their life, that it is passed in violent 
alternations from one to the other — in prostrations 
that level them with the brute, followed by spasmodic 
efforts after a virtue more than human. If the as- 
cendancy of the higher nature is once permanently 
laid low, genius also droops, and can no longer soar. 
No ordinary man, then, is justified in appealing to 
the questionable precedents of genius. Genius has 
stronger impulses to plead ; it has also a stronger in- 
tellect to restrain and guide. If you ask the same 
latitude for the vehemence of your passions, you must 
show, that you have the same controlling power. You 
must consider the peril of the experiment. You must 
ask yourself whether, if you once venture forth on 
the wide sea of folly and excess, you are likely to find 
at some future day enough of wisdom and energy in 
your soul, to pilot your course through the reefs and 
breakers, amidst which the gifted spirits of Burns and 
Sheridan and Coleridge made such disastrous ship- 
wreck. Profit by the experience of others. Enough 
has been written, to lay open to you all the mysteries 
of vice. It is a superficial affair, and soon understood. 
Age after age it renews the same miserable game, and 
betrays the same poverty of resources. Minds of rare 



258 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



endowment have accepted its offers, and proved its 
hollowness, and recorded their penitence for your in- 
struction. Ponder well what they have written ; com- 
pare it with what you feel in yourself and what you 
observe in others ; and you will get a sufficient insight 
into the few odious realities, in the knowledge of 
which from personal experience, some men would fain 
persuade you, that true practical wisdom consists. 
Man's history is one long record of experiments. 
Where you see others have fallen and sunk into mi- 
sery, why should you gratuitously incur the same risk 
and expose yourself to the same sufferings, when no- 
thing new is to be learned, and the retributions of 
the past can only be repeated in the fature ? 

Know the world, then ; know it well — but in a wise 
and noble sense. Go forth into it with a free and 
manly courage, protected by virtuous habit and guided 
by firm and enlightened principle. Go, with a heart 
open to all its sympathies and an eye keenly observant 
of its manifold experience ; but keep your own life and 
soul uncontaminated from the sin which so deeply per- 
vades it. Sin will only darken your vision and per- 
plex your way. Sin is but the shade and negation of 
existence. If you seek reality, give up your reason 
to know the whole truth, and your will to practise 
all that is right. Fear not that life will ever become 
too easy and too smooth a task. With the strongest 
moral power and the clearest moral insight, there will 
still remain enough, to puzzle and confound — enough 
to struggle against — enough to rouse our deepest in- 
terest and liveliest sensibility — enough to require the 
fullest exertion of our highest faculties. Repose was 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE, 



259 



not intended for man. His progress must be a per- 
petual endeavour. As we slowly rise in the moral 
scale, things which we once acquiesced in or were in- 
different to, strike us as evils and sins, brought out 
in strong relief by contrast with a purer sense of moral 
beauty and a clearer consciousness of moral elevation. 
— Nevertheless, avoid scrupulousness. Having fixed 
your principles and habits and settled your predomi- 
nant aim, be not too solicitous about the effect of 
particular acts and particular words. Character is 
determined by the general rule of life, not by the 
casual exception. Cherish an enthusiasm for what- 
ever is pure and noble and excellent. Stoop to no- 
thing mean or sordid or base. Be more intent on 
the accomplishment of some great good, worthy and 
adequate to fill your affections and absorb your in- 
terest and stimulate your highest endeavour, than 
over-anxious to shun the smaller errors, which may 
jar for a moment on the conventional proprieties of 
society, but, when the heart is pure and the aim is 
upright, will be overborne and compensated by the 
prevailing tendency of the character. Ardour for 
right inspires greatness and elevation of soul. Simple 
fear-fulness of wrong contracts the vision and para- 
lyses the will. If you would become a true mo- 
ral hero, exercise your reason freely, and persist in 
the course which conscience bids you take, without 
fearing either the judgments of men or the conse- 
quences of your own acts. Seek your strength in 
the spirit of a living faith. Live to God, and work 
in God. Transfer the life of Christ into your own 
life. That will sanctify every element of your moral 



260 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

b eing; make you all but omnipotent in the cause of 
truth and right ; and deliver you for ever from the 
torment of fear and scrupulousness. Seek out and 
welcome goodness and beauty in all things. They 
are there, if you will only look for them. To the 
pure all things are pure. Use whatever is, and what- 
ever must be, as so much power confided to you by 
God and subject to your own responsible will, for 
bringing into existence, promoting, and disseminating, 
all which you perceive ought to be, and which, in the 
same degree that you are faithful and have trust in 
God, will at last certainly prevail. 



261 



XVII. 

THE RELIGION OE THE INTELLECT AND TEE 
RELIGION OE THE HEART. 

Matthew vi. 22. 

" The light of the body is the eye : if therefore thine eye be singlej 
thy whole body shall be full of light." 

There is a close analog} 7 between things spiritual and 
material. We interpret the one by the aid of the 
other. What the eye is to the outward, the soul is 
to the inward^ nature of man — the organ and avenue 
of light. By that faculty within us which we call the 
soul; we know God, and apprehend duty, and conceive 
the hope of immortality. Through the soul comes the 
light, without which our mortal pathway would be 
involved in darkness. It is important, that a light 
so essential to our highest welfare, should reach us 
pure, unbroken and strong, and pervade every part of 
our being — intellect, affection, will and action. We 
need a clear and open spiritual eye, as the all-illumi- 
nating sun of our interior frame ; that every power 
and sympathy and aspiration may be turned to the 
fountain of light, and drink in its beams, and Religion 
become a penetrating and impregnating principle of 
the entire man. There is a tendency, however, in the 
religious element to insulate itself in some one of our 



262 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

various faculties, and to withdraw from the rest— to 
manifest itself, for example, as mere feeling, or mere 
intellect, or mere outward action. Such a confine- 
ment of the principle best suits perhaps the indolence 
or native temperament of the individual. He resigns 
himself without effort or self-control to constitutional 
impulse or the disposal of circumstances. He com- 
pounds for the absence of Religion in certain regions 
of his being, by cultivating it with great earnestness, 
where it is easy and agreeable to him, as a kind of 
second nature or spontaneous growth. But the dis- 
tinctive character of Religion as such, is its universa- 
lity and absoluteness — -embracing in its grasp all the 
constituents of humanity. Other principles lie within 
the limits of our nature, and assume certain parts of 
it as their appropriate domain, Social and civil duty, 
for example, occupy our active powers; science and 
abstract truth engage the intellect ; and the domestic 
relations take up and absorb our affections. But Reli- 
gion transcends our finite being, and enfolds it from 
without. It is the spiritual atmosphere, in which the 
soul is suspended and exercises its vital functions. 
The true power and manifestation, therefore, of Reli- 
gion are to be seen, not in any one of our faculties 
by itself, but in the harmonious balance and co-ope- 
ration of all of them, under its searching influence and 
commanding sway. 

It has been a question much agitated at all times, 
and nol; least in the present day, whether Religion be 
an affair of the Reason or of the Heart. Men have 
even split into parties on the subject, and by mutual 
reaction driven each other into absurd extremes on 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 268 



both sides. This has been the chief point of contro- 
versy respecting the distribution of religious influence, 
None really acquainted with the nature of Religion, 
have ever thought of limiting its sphere to certain 
outward actions, without reference to their source. 
There are few who have not seen, that Religion, wher- 
ever originating, must at least be an inward principle. 
It is only in the last stage of religious indifference, that 
the value of any conviction or feeling is wholly denied, 
and men accept an outward conformity to the usages 
of the Church, conjoined with a moral life, as a suffi- 
cient test of Christianity. So long as Religion is a 
living principle, the question will constantly be raised 
— what is its proper source ? the Understanding or 
the Heart ? 

We may distinguish the two tendencies, taking their 
departure from these different sources — as the Ra- 
tionalist and the Mystical ; each in its final issue re- 
presenting an extreme, between which the true spirit 
of Christian belief steers a middle course. The Ra- 
tionalist tendency usually commences in a healthful 
reaction — either against a dull, iminquiring formalism 
that slumbers under the spell of traditional phrases 
to which no distinct meaning is attached, — or else 
against a wild fanaticism, carried away by vague and 
obscure feelings which are accepted as the substitute 
for steadfast principle and virtuous conduct. Such 
a state of deadness or aberration continually super- 
venes in the history of religious life : and when it is 
perceived and begins to be resisted — reformers make 
it their one object, to obtain clear ideas, as the great 
desideratum in Religion — to retain no opinion and 



264 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



practice for which an unanswerable reason cannot be 
assigned — to find premises in the region of definite 
and well-established fact, and to evolve the authority 
of the whole system of faith and worship in logical 
sequence out of them. The process of purgation is 
often sweeping and summary. Whatever cannot be 
subjugated to the conditions and brought within the 
limits thus arbitrarily determined— is at once cast 
forth as unsound, the seed of mischief and delusion. 
Under an overpowering dread of superstition and en- 
thusiasm, feeling and imagination are banished from 
the domain of Religion. The vigorous fulness of un- 
conscious poetry in which its earliest spirit was nursed, 
is carefully evaporated, and the meagre residuum col- 
lected and preserved as science. In all ages of the 
Church, we meet with individuals distinguished for 
their rationalizing tendencies ; but there are crises 
which particularly favour the development of this cri- 
tical and negative spirit, when it becomes ascendant 
in the minds of earnest and thinking men, and sets 
its stamp on the prevalent theology of the time. In 
the genius of Luther himself there was a large infu- 
sion of the poetical element, which qualified the Ra- 
tionalist bias of the reformer; but the principles which 
his position obliged him to appeal to, tended ulti- 
mately to Rationalism, and when taken up by men of 
drier and more logical minds — Calvin, Zwingli, and 
Socinus — led inevitably to that result. From the first 
great protest in the age of Luther, down to the close 
of the last century — with occasional and transient 
resistance from a few men of fervid and enthusiastic 
spirit — the strengthening tendency of the Protestant 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 



265 



mind of Europe has been towards nationalism. The 
actuating spirit of all sects, though disguised at first 
in an effervescence of enthusiasm, is at bottom ra- 
tionalistic. They want a more decided expression of 
dogma, than is found in the quiescent bosom of older 
churches; they d.emand more freedom of speech and 
act, than they have enjoyed in their previous associa- 
tions ; and both these demands call the reason into 
vigorous play. The three last centuries have been 
remarkable for the activity of sects • and this alone 
indicates the working of a latent Rationalism. 

The Mystic tendency has its source in an opposite 
demand. It recoils from the affected precision and 
cold distinctness of a scientific theology. It has no 
pleasure in the hard and definite forms that stand out 
sharp and clear in the frosty light of the intellect. It 
seeks a return into the dimmer regions of fancy and 
affection. It craves the soul — the mysterious breath 
of inner life — which it feels should be present in every 
utterance of religious thought. Instead of aiming at 
a logical continuity of ideas, or exactly circumscrib- 
ing the terms in which piety gives vent to its in- 
ward fulness of emotion — it dreads and shuns such 
scholastic rigour, as a check on the free soaring of 
the heart and a confinement of the spiritual within 
the narrow limits of things finite and sensible. Deep, 
silent feeling — secret converse with God — the quiet 
expectancy of his spirit — comparative indifference to 
outward forms and questions of doctrine — such are the 
signs and operations of the Mystic principle. Some- 
times, in its more vehement working, it has thrown 
the minds which it had seized, out of their previous 



66 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY , 



communion, and given birth to sects. This has been, 
when the stimulus of persecution was applied. For 
more generally, the Mystic tendency is too quiescent 
and contemplative to be sectarian. It is rather dis- 
posed to find a common soul of spiritualism under all 
the recognized dogmas and established forms of ex- 
isting churches, which in themselves it surveys with 
placid indifference, or simply uses as means made ef- 
fective by arbitrary association, for kindling exalted 
states of religious emotion. In the Mystic, feelings 
replace ideas. He retires into himself, and owns the 
presence of God in a calm and holy frame of mind, 
or at times amidst silent contemplations of the grand 
and beautiful aspects of external nature. As this 
tendency deepens, God, duty, heaven gradually lose 
their distinctness as objective ideas and melt away 
into mere sentiment — become mental conditions so 
purely subjective, that although affection still vibrates 
faintly through them, they offer no material to the un- 
derstanding and furnish but a feeble stimulus to the 
will. This is the extreme phase of the principle — its 
corruption and decline. In its earlier stages, it may 
co-exist with the noblest intellectual powers and the 
finest qualities of the heart. Many are the beautiful 
and instructive works that have been written under 
its influence. Fenelon and a Kempis suffice to show, 
what deep -thought ed wisdom and spiritual loveliness 
it can infuse into mind and character. 

It is quite evident, that there is some truth and 
some error in both the Rationalist and the Mystic 
tendencies • and that they have been driven violently 
asunder from a common centre where they ought to 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 



267 



subsist in unison. There can be no steady and ope- 
rative belief, without some clear and definite idea 
embraced by the understanding. In all belief, there- 
fore, there must be a rationalistic element. But in 
genuine piety, there will also be a depth and intensity 
of feeling, more than proportionate to any ideas which 
can possibly come within the grasp of the intellect, 
and reinforced by influences from that dim region of 
the Infinite, where distinct ideas are out of the ques- 
tion. In all true faith, then, there is room and need 
for a mystic element ; and where it does not exist, 
faith is weak and imperfect. 

The basis of faith is our inherent consciousness of 
realities that transcend the limits of the outward sense. 
God, a responsible soul, a spiritual world — are beliefs 
that grow out of the natural workings of a primitive 
feeling. Such a feeling is the elemental matter out of 
which our moral nature is formed. All our thoughts 
and acts presuppose its existence. Its entire absence 
would involve the abnegation of our humanity. Its 
possession marks the distinction between man and 
brute. There was a deep truth in the words of a 
great schoolman : ' I do not seek to understand, that 
I may believe ; but I believe, that I may understand/* 
Belief is the root of understanding. But this primi- 
tive feeling — -this intuitive belief — is only the rudi- 
ment of Religion. Reflection and reasoning must 
intervene, to mould it into form — in other words, to 

* c Neque enim qusero inteiligere lit credam, sed credo ut intelligam. 
ISam qui non crediderit, non experietur, et qui expert us non fuerit, 
non iutelliget.' The words which Schleiermacher has taken from 
Anselrn, as a motto to his ' Christliche Grlaube. 5 

N 2 



268 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



convert it into dogma and make it apprehensible by 
the understanding. This they effect by defining the 
vagueness of the original feeling, and distinctly re- 
alizing it to perception, through the aid of pheno- 
mena that lie constantly under our immediate inspec- 
tion. That great fact of mind springing up and grow- 
ing within ourselves, supplies a measure of intelligible 
comparison for the boundless agencies which lie be- 
yond us. The mutual adaptation, the order and the 
harmony so visible in creation, present the counter- 
part of effects which our own minds, within a narrower 
sphere, have the power of originating. Thus mind 
becomes to us an expression of Deity: and in forming 
a conception of the Supreme Mind, the Rationalist 
will be careful to admit no elements but such as are 
justifiable to reason, warranted by moral sense, and 
in harmony with pure and holy affection. The 
material' of Religion is given a priori ; form is im- 
pressed on it by the recipient and reflecting subject. 
As a consequence, form or dogma always sustains a 
certain relation to the individuality of the believer, 
and corresponds to his power of apprehending and re- 
alizing things infinite. On the other hand, the feel- 
ings of awe and reverence and trust which lie within 
the dogmatic conception and form its hidden soul, 
with such limitation and construction of them, as ne- 
cessarily result from the universal laws of the human 
intellect and conscience — constitute the spiritual he- 
ritage of ail pious souls and contain the germs of a 
Religion for mankind. But if in the effort to define 
dogmas — in controversy respecting them — or in seek- 
ing to impose a common type of them on all minds — 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 



269 



the fundamental feeling in which they originated and 
from which alone they derive any value or signifi- 
cance, should be enfeebled and lost y — then it is clear, 
that the whole subject under discussion, turns on the 
choice and collocation of words from which the living 
soul is fled; and that divines justly incur the charge 
so often alleged against them, of contending about a 
nonentity. They may work out a logical formula, 
but they will not develope a spiritual truth. 

The importance of dogmas differs for communities 
and for individuals. In a church — which means a 
free union of worshipers — dogmas should be as few 
as possible — more implied and tacitly agreed upon, 
than distinctly expressed — and in their effect rather 
negative than positive, rather excluding the elements 
of probable discord, than defining points of agreement 
where the general heart and conscience, imbued with 
the spirit of Christianity, may be left to find a spon- 
taneous sympathy. The proper object of a church is 
to preserve and cherish the feeling of Eeligion among 
mankind, and through the repeated, concentration and 
reinforcement of it in acts of social devotion, to send 
it forth with new power and impulse into the whole 
inward and outward life. For this purpose there 
must, it is obvious, be some dogmatic agreement, but 
only in relation to broad, fundamental principles. 
There must be agreement respecting the object of 
worship, the sentiments and dispositions which are 
believed to be most acceptable to Him, and the mode 
in which the feelings of love and reverence towards 
Him should be outwardly and publicly expressed. 
There must be an avoidance in the language of the 



270 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY . 

common worship, though, not as necessarily in dis- 
courses from the pulpit, of all such topics as lie out- 
side the recognized circle of sentiment within which 
the mingled hearts of the society can beat in unison j 
for there are many topics on which individuals may 
hold the greatest diversity of opinion without any 
diminution of high and holy sympathy in the essential 
feelings of Religion. In this sense, the observation 
is undoubtedly true, which has often been exposed to 
unmerited ridicule, that the uniting principle of church 
membership should be sought rather in the heart than 
in the head. 

But the duty of the individual in regard to dogmas, 
goes far beyond this point. If he feels — as every serious 
mind must feel — the essential grandeur and solemnity 
of Religion — he will earnestly address his reason to 
the subject. By the exercise of his highest faculties, 
he will try to solve for himself the great problem of 
existence, and to harmonize the demands of faith and 
intellect. This is the obvious duty of the individual, 
though many do not regard it as such ; and till there 
has been an honest and energetic effort to fulfil it — 
at least practically and provisionally — no man pos- 
sesses a true wisdom. Personal faith must rest to a 
considerable extent on clear and well-defined dogma. 
Dogma is the form in which the religious feelings of an 
individual fix and set themselves, so as to hold a posi- 
tive relation to his understanding and exert an in- 
strumental force upon his will. In the religious do- 
main of a community, large spaces must be left open 
and free, unoccupied by any dogmatic determina- 
tion ; but in the faith of the individual, all these must 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 271 

be filled up — so far as he has intellectual strength 
for the task — to the inward peace and contentment 
of his own spirit. He will read, and reflect, and ex- 
amine controverted points — and, where his own powers 
fail, he will accept the best authority to which reason 
conducts him, as a provisional guide — only to settle 
practical conviction and quiet disturbing doubts — only 
to send down Religion with a deeper root into his 
inmost soul, to engage all his faculties and affections 
more heartily in its service — and to envelope his en- 
tire being in a perpetual atmosphere of holy and de- 
vout sentiment. Such are the respective functions 
and mutual relations of Intellect and Feeling in the 
culture of Religion. 

Religion — who can doubt it ? — is the noblest of 
themes for the exercise of intellect. To search out 
the character and designs of the Infinite Being — to 
trace his laws in the wondrous economy of creation — 
to weigh the deep and subtle questions that are in- 
volved in the essential conditions of spiritual exist- 
ence, God's all-embracing causality, man's freedom 
and responsibility — to meditate on duty, death, re- 
tribution, immortality — to contemplate the revela- 
tions of the Divine Mind in the minds of sages and 
holy men and prophets and a Christ — to read the 
eternal thoughts of God in the great book of human 
history — to pursue that marvellous fact of Christianity 
from age to age and from clime to clime, winding its 
golden thread unbroken through the dark tissue of hu- 
man passions and woes, ever witnessing amidst scorn- 
ful indifference and hostile unbelief, the reality of a 
diviner life than that of earth — to balance the claims 



272 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



of those vast powers of Church and State, which still 
convulse the world with their jealousy and conflict— 
lo ! here are subjects of surpassing greatness and in- 
terest, which have tasked the efforts of the mightiest 
spirits — a Pascal, a Leibnitz, a Newton, a Locke, a 
Kant, a Schleiermacher : and no one w T ho reflects on 
their profound meditations, their elaborate reason- 
ings, and their solemn utterances of conviction— can 
doubt, that Religion is no idle sport of momentary 
feeling, but an awful truth which underlies all other 
truths, and demands for its illustration and enforce- 
ment the consenting homage and service of all our 
human powers. 

Still it was feeling — a sense of something anterior 
to reasoning, and the basis of all knowledge — a faith 
that rose silently from the inner consciousness and 
infused itself into every intellectual operation — which 
impelled those great men to exercise their highest fa- 
culties on the solemn theme, and opened their hearts 
to the influx of sympathies which they shared in com- 
mon with the simplest and most unlearned of their 
race. Yes, it was feeling which made them religious 
— the same feeling which fills the bosom of the child 
with wondering reverence and awe, when the name of 
God is first associated with the beauty and grandeur 
and immensity of the visible universe — the same feel- 
ing which in humbler spheres binds men to duty, and 
comforts them in sorrow, and inspires them in the 
consciousness of an invisible presence with holy love 
and a sublime trust. The wisest can only be reli- 
gious through those common sympathies, which re- 
mind us all, whatever be our degree of intellectual 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 273 

cultivation, that we are members of one human 
family — which, strengthen the virtuous to help and 
encourage each other, when the cause of right and 
truth seems failing in the earth — which gather with 
tenderer, holier influence around the heart, as the 
light of life grows pale, and the shade steals on which 
to mortal eyes will quench it for ever. In such sympa- 
thies the vital power of Religion consists. Its proper 
seat is in the heart. Such are feelings, which all 
alike require — -which shed a sacred calm on the last 
moments of the Christian scholar and sage, and dispel 
all gloom from the bed where the lowliest child of 
poverty and toil gives back his spirit to his Creator. 
If Religion is unable to nurse these sympathies and 
supply these feelings — it is an empty name. Ah ! 
Christian, what will it avail thee, when the sad and 
solemn realities of existence press heavily on thy 
heart, that thou art versed in all the subtleties of 
dogmatic lore, and hast sounded the depths of con- 
troversy, and canst produce a reason for every article 
of thy creed, of which the ablest adversary is unable 
to dispossess thee ? Canst thou find spiritual nou- 
rishment in these things ? Do they yield thee the 
vital strength and inward solace of Religion ? If thou 
hast never tasted the holy peace, which descends into 
the simplest heai't, when it fervently realizes the pre- 
sence of God — if no gleam from the future life ever 
brightens thy earthly way — if the sores and irrita- 
tions of thy contact with the world, are never soothed 
and softened by the healing consciousness of a divine 
love — thou hast studied to little purpose, and the 
fountains of a true happiness are yet sealed up to 

n 3 



274 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

thee. Go rather and forsake thy books ; cast off the 
cumbrous pedantry that oppresses thy brain and dark- 
ens thy affections ; and learn a better lesson of that 
humble follower of Christ, whose highest wisdom is 
to know and serve God — whose Religion fills his heart 
with joy and his life with love. 



275 



XVIII. 

THE GEOUNDS AND LIMITS OF SPIRITUAL 
AUTHORITY. 

Hebeews xii. 9. 

" We hare had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we 
gave them reverence : shall we not much rather be in subjection unto 
the Father of our spirits and live ?" 

The question of authority in Religion, with its rela- 
tion to the rights of private judgment, is by the ma- 
jority of men very imperfectly understood, and, when 
thoroughly looked into, presents more difficulty than 
superficial thinkers perceive. Few Protestants com- 
prehend its real nature and whole extent. From the 
inherent inconsistency of the position which they or- 
dinarily assume, and their unwillingness to recognize 
any element of truth in the grounds of their adver- 
saries, they lay themselves open to attacks, in their 
controversy with the Catholics, which it is impossible 
effectually to repel. To tins cause, quite as much as 
to any insidious influence of papal emissaries, we must 
ascribe the great increase of Romish principles among 
the educated classes of this country, ever since the 
revival of an interest in Church questions. As hi- 
therto conducted, discussion has rather weakened than 
strengthened Protestantism. 

There are only three positions which the mind can 



276 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



possibly take, for the settlement of controverted points 
and the fixation of its own religious belief : — (1 .) that 
of individual self-reliance ; (2.) that of submission to 
some accredited authority from the Past, either in a 
sacred scripture or in a symbolical book expository of 
scripture; (3.) that of deference to some perpetual 
and concurrent authority, in a living person or body 
of persons. In a great number of cases, these princi- 
ples are variously intermingled with each other ; they 
can never perhaps be kept entirely separate : but the 
decided predominance of one of them, gives a distin- 
guishing character to the faith which is moulded 
under its influence. We may hence divide all reli- 
gious belief into three grand forms, marked off from 
each other by their fundamental principle : (1.) Free 
Inquiry, which refers the decision of every question 
predominantly and ultimately to the individual judg- 
ment; (2.) Protestantism, which acknowledges Scrip- 
ture as the all-sufficient authority, but usually adopts 
some recognized interpretation of it, in a creed or a 
catechism, as its actual guide; and (3.) Catholicism, 
which submits to the present determination of the 
Church, whether its authority be represented by one 
individual or by many. On one or other of these 
grounds or some composition of them, can we alone 
arrive at any conclusion respecting matters of faith. 
These are the fixed limits, within which lies the whole 
field of religious controversy. Let us examine each 
of these, principles in turn, and consider, what can be 
alleged on behalf of them, and wherein they prove 
themselves wanting. We will take them in the reverse 
order of that in which they have been now stated — 
beginning with the Catholic. 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 



277 



I. The Catholic system affirms the necessity of an 
unbroken line of traditional authority from the age of 
the apostles to the present day — to transmit and au- 
thenticate the truths of Christianity. Till the general 
recognition of a Scriptural canon, which cannot be 
dated before the middle at least of the second century 
— tradition was necessary to preserve Christianity in 
existence : and the heads of the churches which had 
received it in the first instance from the apostles, were 
its proper witnesses and representatives to the world. 
Scripture itself was at length owned and ratified by 
the same individuals who had hitherto perpetuated the 
tradition,"* Scripture became then a substitute for the 
earlier tradition ; or rather it embodied the selectest 
substance of the tradition in a fixed and permanent 
form. 'And yet the excluded portion of tradition could 
not be wholly dispensed with, as a concurrent authority 
and a help to interpretation. From the complex and 
multifarious character of Scripture, from its partially 
discordant materials, and from its openness to an 
endless variety of construction — any approach to uni- 
formity of belief or agreement in practice was ob- 
viously impossible, without the erection of some tri- 
bunal which might serve at once, as a witness of what 
had hitherto been received as true doctrine, and as an 
authority to pronounce, in cases yet undecided, what 
should be considered such for times to come. Who so 
fit for the exercise of this double function, as those 
who had filled, or were still filling, the highest sta- 

* Such I suppose to have been the class of persons designated by 
Eusebius as ol Kara diaSoxhs £KK\r}<ria<rTiKot. — Hist. Eccles. II. 25. 
III. 25, with HeinichevCs Note. 



278 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



tions in the Church — through whom under the influ- 
ence of the Spirit,, it was believed, that the living tra- 
dition of Christianity had been handed down from 
the first age — and whose united voice was accepted as 
the voice of God ? — (Ecumenic councils have settled 
fundamental points ; the fathers transmit a long chain 
of judgments from century to century; bishops for 
the time being take up and interpret the doctrines 
delivered to them \ and the sovereign bishop or pope 
collects, expresses and executes the consentient de- 
crees of the whole Church. Such in general is the 
constitution of the authority which Catholics plead 
for, as legitimately vested in their Church.' 36, 

From the obvious necessity for uninterrupted tra- 
dition to warrant the pure conveyance of a historical 
religion, and for some competent tribunal to decide 
what is law, in a book so obscure and conflicting in 
many of its statements as Scripture — Catholic dispu- 
tants are able to invest then case with a sufficient 
show of plausibility, to puzzle those who are not so 
prejudiced as to see only one side of the question, and 
yet have never reasoned down the subject to its fun- 
damental principles. And all these considerations ac- 
quire a double force, when certain assumptions adroitly 
slipped in among them, are unsuspectingly admitted 

# The Catholic doctrine of Tradition is luminously expounded by 
Mohler in his Symbolik, § 38 and 39. c Die Tradition ist das fort- 
wahrend in den Herzen der Grlaubigen lebende Wort. — Die Tradition 
hn objectiven Shine ist der in ausserlichen historischen Zeugnissen 
vorliegende Gresammtglaube der Kirche clinch alle Jahrhunderte 
hindurch : in dieseni Shine wird gewohnlich die Tradition die Norm, 
die Eichtschnur der Schrifterklarung, die Gdaubensregel, geuauut." — 
p. 357. 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 



279 



by the mind : first, that some one clearly defined, ex- 
clusive and self- consistent system of doctrine is es- 
sential to the preservation of Christian truth, the pu- 
rity of the Church, and the salvation of individuals ; 
and secondly, that as the multitude cannot evolve 
this system from Scripture for themselves, so men of 
the highest station in the Church must derive from 
their position the necessaiy qualifications for discover- 
ing the truth and an inherent authority to declare it. 
In affirmation of these claims, the Catholics lay stress 
on particular texts of Scripture. But Scripture, were 
its language ever so explicit, could not furnish the 
credentials of any such authority as is assumed ; since 
Scripture emanated as a rule or canon from the very 
class in whose favour it is required to speak. To cite 
it for th's purpose, is like producing a man as his 
own witness in his own court. When the attempt is 
made to ground these high pretensions on histoiy in- 
dependent of Scripture, we detect such contrariety of 
opinion on fundamental questions, and so many in- 
stances of human passion and infirmity, in the most- 
eminent fathers — such vacillation and inconsistency 
of purpose, so much intrigue and corruption and even 
violence in the measures which are known to have in- 
fluenced the decisions of ecclesiastical councils — that 
no man who forms his judgment from facts, can re- 
pose his faith with any assurance on authorities like 
these. Nevertheless, when the assumptions to which 
I have adverted are incautiously allowed to pass, and 
conscious inability to solve the many difficult ques- 
tions confidently affirmed to involve eternal salvation, 
is brought home by a skilful advocacy to unprepared 



280 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

and susceptible minds — it is not surprising, that some 
should finally give way to the specious fallacies of this 
subtle mixture of truth and falsehood. 

II. Protestantism at its outset had a heavy charge 
of the worst corruption to allege against Catholicism. 
Selfish and ambitious men had accumulated abuse on 
abuse, and thrown up, in defence of their own power 
and wealth, a huge mass of rite and usage, cemented 
by the vilest superstition, for which not the shadow 
of a reason could be found in Scripture or the primi- 
tive institution of Christ. A superficial theology and 
a lax morality had diffused themselves with the secu- 
lar disorders of the Church. Tradition under cover 
of medieval darkness had wholly disjointed itself from 
Scripture, and rioted at large without check or con- 
trol. A latent heathenism was its actuating principle. 
Things were said and done in the name of Christ, ut- 
terly abhorrent to the spirit of his religion. There 
was not the trace of a similitude between the lordly 
and voluptuous prelates of the Roman hierarchy and 
the simple missionaries of Galilee. Like the scribes 
of old, the ecclesiastical rulers of this western world 
had made the "Word of God of none effect by their 
tradition. In all these things, Protestantism had a 
strong case for itself, and in the first impulse of its 
sincere and fervent zeal, went, as it believed, to the 
root of the whole matter. It took Scripture directly 
and exclusively as the sole witness of Divine truth, to 
which the authority of the Church and the reason of 
individual man, both deeply tainted by hereditary sin, 
must equally bow. But Protestanti m was soon star- 
tled by consequences — springing inevitably from the 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 



281 



ground taken by her- — which she was quite unpre- 
pared for, and refused to admit. She had embraced 
a principle which justified every man in becoming his 
own interpreter of Scripture, and put arguments into 
the hand of her great antagonist, which she was un- 
able to repel without condemning her own separation. 
The Catholics reproached her — and with apparent rea- 
son — for having sown the seeds of incurable anarchy 
and confusion. She was perplexed and dismayed : and 
events soon made her aware of the incalculable extent 
of the consequences flowing from her own act, which 
she had not foreseen, Various minds exulting in free- 
dom, took up by a sort of elective affinity from Scrip- 
ture, just those elements which most harmonized with 
their own moral and intellectual temperament, and 
proceeded boldly to circulate them in practice; nor 
was it without obvious justice that they referred to 
Luther' s conduct in vindication of their own. Munzer 
and the Swabian peasants, John of Ley den and the 
visionaries of Munster, wild Antinomians on one hand, 
and cold, rationalizing Socinians on the other — all 
could produce some texts from the same volume in 
favour of their several theories, and asked why Chris- 
tian liberty was to begin and end with Luther himself. 

Before long all the larger sections of the Protestant 
Church drew out into public formularies, what they 
accepted as the substance of Christian doctrine con- 
tained in Scripture, and demanded from their adhe- 
rents the profession of conformity to this recognized 
standard of truth. They still indeed appealed to Scrip- 
ture, as the only valid authority, especially in contro- 
versy with the Romanists; but it was Scripture — not 



282 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

as it lay naked to the general eye, but as it was seen, 
through the coloured medium of a particular theologi- 
cal system. There was more reason for such a course, 
in an age when men had long been accustomed to 
lean on external authority, than may at first view oc- 
cur to those, who have not taken into account the 
many difficulties of Scriptural interpretation, nor well 
considered how much judgment is required to apply 
its lessons profitably to the actual circumstances of 
the world. But it was a course plainly inconsistent 
with the full development of the broad principle which 
Luther^ s necessities more perhaps than his deliberate 
choice had compelled him to adopt ; and it must be 
regarded, therefore, as an admission of precipitancy, 
and a retrocession so far towards the authoritative 
principle of the older Church. Some minds were 
thrown back by a perception of these inconsistencies, 
into the communion which they had forsaken. They 
returned, however, not unaffected by the crisis through 
which they had passed, and blended with the resump- 
tion of their ancient associations, a spirit of rational- 
ism which has been compared for its union of philo- 
sophic and hierarchic tendencies, to some speculations 
of the present day.* 

A great principle was undoubtedly asserted by the 
first Protestants— taking their stand as they did on 
a religion essentially historical — in concentrating at- 
tention and reverence on the documents which authen- 
ticated its origin and presented its genuine doctrines. 

# See Neander's Historical Monograph — 4 Theobald Tharner, der 
Represent ant und Yorganger moderner Greistesrichtung in dern Re- 
formationszeitalter.' Berlin. 1842. 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 



283 



They had reason, moreover, for the conclusion which 
they soon embraced — that the uneducated multitude 
were incompetent to extract from the miscellaneous 
contents of Scripture, a clear and consistent rule of 
faith and practice — especially on the ground then 
generally assumed, that every part of it was inspired 
and of equal value. They were right in contending 
for the need of learning and cultivated intellect to 
restrain and guide the blind fanaticism and impetuous 
ignorance of the popular mind. The Confessions 
put forth by the great Protestant divines, Melancthon, 
Calvin and Bullinger — and the Articles adopted by 
the Reformed Church of England — judged by the 
circumstances under which they were imposed — ought 
less to be considered a deliberate infringement on 
Christian liberty, than a provision for practical unity 
extorted by the necessities of the times, without which 
not a single church could have settled clown into order 
and consistency. That Scripture simply and by itself 
can never be a direct rule for the belief and conduct 
of any extensive association of men, must be obvious 
to every one who will dispassionately consider what 
Scripture is. The fact is proved by universal ex- 
perience. Xo church can subsist without a creed, 
expressed or implied — a fixed or a progressive one ; 
and the medium through which that creed operates, 
is some exposition of doctrine interposed between the 
popular mind and Scripture itself. Subsequently, 
indeed, the creed may be verified or proved false, by 
an immediate examination of Scriptural evidence; 
but the cases are comparatively rare and only under 
peculiar circumstances possible, in which an entire 



284 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



creed can be deduced at once and exclusively from 
Scripture. Even those who protest the most loudly 
and indignantly against creeds, in point of fact have, 
and require, one — like all their fellow Christians — 
although it may not he authoritatively set forth, and 
no public recital of it be in use. We observe, that all 
religious Societies decline, in which the spiritual con- 
sciousness is indistinct and weak — when the preaching 
is confined to vague, superficial generalities, with no- 
thing marked and definite to indicate earnest con- 
viction. In churches whose hereditary boast is the 
admission of the largest freedom of individual opinion, 
great stress is properly laid on a careful instruction of 
the young in the grounds and principles of their faith ; 
and a demand goes-forth repeatedly from their bosom, 
for some clear and explicit declaration of the implied 
belief* 

So long, therefore, as Christianity shall be supposed 

# The aversion from any systematic exposition of their belief, has 
been carried in England to a vicious extent by those Protestant sects 
that most pride themselves on then* mental freedom. They ascribe 
it to their reliance on the sufficiency of Scripture, but it really in- 
dicates spiritual coldness and debility. No minds seem to exist 
among them of sufficient fervour and power, or sufficiently grounded 
in the needful theological discipline, to be capable of clearly grasping 
fundamental principles, and consequentially deducing from them, by 
the united aid of Scripture, history, and reason, the great leading 
results of Christian doctrine and practice — not as an authoritative 
type of opinion, but as a help and a guide to the inquirer, and at 
least a proximate and provisional standard of belief by winch to dis- 
tinguish a particular section of the Universal Church. In Germany, 
Catholics and Protestants produce in abundance books of this de- 
scription, which greatly assist the attainment of clear ideas on con- 
troverted points. With us nothing of the sort has, of late years at 
least, made its appearance. 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 



285 



to retain any dogmatic elements and is not wholly re- 
solved into a general spiritual influence — some creed, 
as a bond of Christian association, is not only not 
wrong, but inevitable. Everything depends on its 
construction and extent, and the terms of its accept- 
ance. It was the capital error of the first Protestants, 
which has enslaved so many of their descendants — 
that instead of a provisional form of belief, demanded 
by the time, but open to a progressive expansion 
and development — they set up a rigid and permanent 
standard to which all must outwardly conform. The 
Formulary of Concord and the Thirty-Nine Articles 
are regarded by the Lutheran and Anglican Churches, 
as a fixed embodiment of Christian truth, to guide for 
all time the teachings of their ministers — statements 
of doctrine, which future learning is not to enlarge 
and modify, but simply to vindicate. The authorita- 
tive principle of Rome has been thus resumed by 
Protestantism — and with still less adaptation to the 
ever-changing condition of the human mind : for the 
great idea of the old Church, was that of a living 
tradition, capable of growth from age to age, and ever 
developing new lights for the exposition of the written 
word. The fixedness of the later Romish system, as 
expressed in the decrees of the Council of Trent, has 
resulted from reaction against the new dogmatism 
by which Catholicism was assailed, and is therefore 
indirectly due to the tendencies of its adversary. 
Learning, it is true, and free inquiry have always 
flourished to a great extent in Protestant churches 
and Protestant universities,— but more through the 
influence of principles which came into operation 



286 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DITTY. 



along with. Protestantism, as involved in its funda- 
mental postulate, than from the immediate action of 
Protestantism itself. It has ever been tlie tendency 
of the ecclesiastical element of Protestantism, in its 
great and recognized forms — to bind down men's 
minds to a scrupulous maintenance of its original 
standards. Only by an extensive use of the system 
of accommodation have the later fruits of philology and 
abstract speculation enjoyed a precarious toleration 
under the recognized orthodoxy. In the new, as in 
the old, church, the false principle has been assumed, 
that human salvation is contingent on the acceptance 
of truth in a particular doctrinal form. By setting 
up a rigid scripturalism against a fluctuating tradition 
— a past and permanent, instead of a present and va- 
riable, authority — Protestantism has often as com- 
pletely denied the rights of the human mind, as 
Catholicism; and though happily its reverence for 
Scripture has generally secured a certain freedom of 
thought and latitude of inquiry at least within scrip- 
tural limits, yet its stern dogmatism and its narrow 
view 01 human relations to God have at times ob- 
structed the progress of truth and a genuine mental 
culture, if not as openly and avowedly, almost as 
effectually, as the ancient despotism. 

III. Free Inquiry, if it were true throughout to its 
fundamental principle, would cast off all external re- 
liance and require a man to construct his religion 
entirely from personal resources. He must adopt 
nothing that he could not prove. But such absolute 
self-sufficiency is impossible. The social conditions 
of human development prevent it. Tradition and 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 



287 



authority modify to an inconceivable extent the opi- 
nions and practice of the m5st independent minds. 
Many ideas and feelings which lie at the root of our 
religions belief, we are all conscious were transmitted 
to us. We know, that we have had no share what- 
ever in producing them. They came to us ; and we 
took them — for a certain authority which they seemed 
to carry with themselves, not disputed but rather con- 
firmed by other principles of our being. Elements 
enter into all our reasonings and conclusions, which 
we are obliged to accept at second hand from persons 
whose character inspires us with trust, and whose 
knowledge and abilities qualify them to give infor- 
mation. Questions come across us in the world, in 
regard to which we must form some opinion and take 
some course, although we are as yet incompetent to 
examine and settle them for ourselves. In the inter- 
val, therefore — without foregoing our right to inquire 
— we thankfully assume, as a provisional ground of 
action, the assurance of persons in whose judgment 
and integrity we have confidence, especially where the 
instruction which they give, is not discordant with 
the previous results of our own reasoning and ex- 
perience. 

With regard more particularly to religious usage 
and observances, and the traditions which determine 
the outward form and character of Christian churches 
—things in themselves indifferent, or only of relative 
importance as giving body and expression to invisible 
and spiritual realities — that which we find already 
established, that into which we are born, and under 
which we have been trained and educated — where it 



288 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



does not war with, any higher feeling nor check spiri- 
tual development — has a claim on our reverential 
acceptance, although we can assign no logical reason, 
why it should be exactly as it is and not otherwise, 
and although, had we now to make an arrangement 
for the first time, we might not strike out precisely 
the very thing that exists. Too much reasoning about 
such points implies an arid and unfruitful scrupulous- 
ness. Spiritual agencies require a visible clothing and 
distinct utterance. Without some perceptible shape 
and determination, Religion cannot bind men together 
in a fellowship of worship, nor even subsist as a social 
power. So long as our souls are encased in flesh, 
intercourse and sympathy cannot wholly dispense with 
material links. What is, is therefore best, because it 
is, if it do not depress and hinder what ought to be. 
In this respect religious, stand on the same footing 
with civil, institutions. If the spiritual substance 
whether of freedom or of piety be kept pure and 
allowed to expand, the containing vehicle and out- 
ward organism may be left with advantage to the ac- 
cidents of history, or the transmitted influence of 
some creative mind of the past. There is a deference 
too which we spontaneously yield to minds of emi- 
nent wisdom and sanctity, in their disclosures re- 
specting that higher spiritual consciousness, wherein 
we perceive they lie so much nearer God than our- 
selves, though we cannot assign any distinct logical 
grounds for the assurances they convey. This defe- 
rence is the basis of prophetic authority, which over- 
powers to the degree in which it is felt, the perfect 
freedom and independence of intellectual action. In- 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 



289 



creasing as it does in proportion to our conviction of 
the perfect holiness of its object, it is the secret of 
that profound veneration and trust which most re- 
ligious natures associate with the person of Christ. 

In regard, then, to ideas imbibed in childhood but 
through life lying at the root of our deepest belief — 
to knowledge indispensable to the completeness of 
opinion, but placed beyond our present means of ve- 
rification — to forms which are but accidents in the 
outward manifestation of Religion, yet without which 
its spirit would want the needful instrumentalities of 
influence — and to the trustful submission which high 
spiritual excellence always commands with minds con- 
scious of their own inferiority — in all these particulars, 
every man, however much he may affect an entire 
individuality of opinion, is inevitably, and far more 
perhaps than he is aware, governed by tradition and 
dependent on authority. Our spiritual life is moulded 
and limited by conditions over which the will has no 
power, inasmuch as they belong to that vast sove- 
reignty of influences and impressions inherited from 
the past, to which we are subjected from oar birth 
and unconsciously yield obedience. 

But again there are bounds to this dependence, 
which it is important to mark, not only because they 
legitimate it to the extent that it must exist, but be- 
cause they are continually narrowing it with the deve- 
lopment of the moral and mental faculties. These 
bounds are defined by every man's interior sense of 
truth and right. This sense is our only sure guide, 
so far as it will take us. By it we are finally deter- 
mined to the acceptance of Christ himself and his 

o 



290 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

prophetic predecessors — and to the religious study of 
the writings produced under their influence. By this 
same sense too,, as an indirect criterion, we judge of 
the title of many things to our safe confidence, where 
they are not, and cannot be, subjects of direct know- 
ledge and personal conviction. If we find that the 
influence of these secondary opinions, accepted provi- 
sionally on the warrant of others, is in harmony with 
our fundamental feeling of what is right, and helps to 
unfold and strengthen what is good and noble within 
us~we may rest on them without danger, till further 
growth of reason and ampler means of knowledge 
shall enable u§ to master the whole intellectual pro- 
cess for ourselves. If the effect be of an opposite 
kind — if it disturb our moral convictions — if it excite 
and encourage our meaner propensities — if it indis- 
pose us to duty, and turn away our hearts from our 
fellow- creatures and from God — though we should 
be wholly unable to meet logically the sophistries by 
which such opinions are enforced, we may neverthe- 
less unhesitatingly reject them as false ; for the argu- 
ment in the conscience will suffice for their confuta- 
tion. In this highest of all human functions — the 
exercise of moral responsibility — man is and must be, 
under every religious system, dependent on his indi- 
vidual judgment alone for his belief and conduct. 
Here he is exempt from the claims of tradition, and 
bound to set himself above all external authority. 
With the progress of moral and mental culture, self- 
reliance and provisional submission to authority as- 
sume a different relation towards each other. As men 
know more and acquire a richer spiritual experience, 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 291 

they take less on trust, and form a more immediate 
judgment of religious truth. We outgrow by degrees 
the need of that dependence on others, which was at 
first indispensable, and which may still be required for 
the less advanced of the human race. Till we can go 
alone, we must lean on the hand of a guide. This is 
a*i obvious limitation of the prerogative of self-reli- 
ance and the right of private judgment. 

For ages to come, possibly for ever, authority under 
some modification may continue to operate in this life 
as a determining influence io the formation of those 
states of mind, where our hopes and our consolations 
and all our incentives to virtue have their securest 
abode. The intuitions of the wise will ever shed their 
mysterious light on the dark road of human destiny. 
The voice of the prophet will ever exercise a religious 
sway over the believing heart. Such are 'the fathers 
of our flesh' who conduct us in our passage to the 
other world ; and because they speak to us in words 
which inspire our trust, of heaven and heavenly things 
— we duly give them reverence. Only in times to 
come, these may no longer be the consecrated priest, 
the accredited teacher, the recognized guide— men 
honoured and useful in their day, and still destined in 
many situations to dispense influences of the purest 
good — but all gifted spirits of every class, who con- 
ceive high thoughts and clothe them in words of 
searching power, and breathe heaven's inspiration into 
the human heart. Such will become priests and pro- 
phets for the future generations of mankind. All 
genuine ministries — all that give evidence of true 
apostolic descent — subserve the one only purpose of 

o 2 



292 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

subjecting men to the Father of spirits that they may 
live. It is the highest wisdom so far only to depend 
on external authority, as we feel that it helps us up- 
ward to God, and gives us inward freedom in Him. 
How to combine and harmonize in the social fabric 
these two elements of liberty and authority, is the 
great problem that lies beneath all the local and more 
superficial questions that now agitate the civilized 
world. Men are everywhere craving a freer surrender 
of their hearts and lives to the power of truth and 
the law of their own minds, in subjection to God 
alone. Priests and despots oppose this just demand 
of the awakening soul ; but priests and despots cannot 
rule the world for ever. Such is the struggle through 
which vast portions of the human family must pass, 
ere they can appropriate the spiritual heritage which 
is their due. God grant a successful issue, and — if 
possible — a bloodless transition ! 



293 



XIX. 

THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 
Job xiv. 14. 

"All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change 
come." 

Traditional usage and customary modes of speech 
in which conviction and feeling have little share, so 
beset our human life with shows and forms on every 
side, that it is very difficult to discern the true cha- 
racter of the realities which encompass us. With 
what solemnities have we invested the event of Death ! 
Yet how few comprehend its deep significance ! And 
how^ slight is the impression which it leaves on the 
impetuous course of our selfish interests and vanities ! 
Let us strip it, if we can, of the disguise which so- 
ciety has thrown around it, and contemplate it with 
simple truthfulness as a fact. It is the greatest and 
least understood of all the changes which await us. 
We may look at Death from the material or from the 
spiritual point of view. We may survey it from our 
position on earth, as the last link in a chain of visible 
phenomena — or from the higher elevation of faith, as 
the medium of transition to a new form of existence. 
Both these points of view must be embraced, to ob- 
tain a full understanding of Death. 

Let us first consider the several aspects which it 



294 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



presents to us, when regarded exclusively as the ter- 
mination of the present state of things. Death, then, 
is a prepared, inevitable, necessaiy event. It has its 
appointed time. It is a change that must come. The 
seed of it is silently ripening in our constitution from 
the first. The physiologist could show ns, that all the 
changes which take place in the human system froni 
the hour, of conception and birth, lead by unavoidable 
sequence to the last result of Death. Birth and 
Death have an indissoluble correlation : — they presup- 
pose each other. A chain of invincible necessity con- 
nects these two extremes of our mortal life. Death 
has passed by irrevocable decree on all men. It is 
a sure consequence of the actual constitution of hu- 
manity. 

The higher we ascend in the scale of terrestrial 
being, the more certain, speedy and calculable the 
event of final dissolution becomes. Revolutions in the 
great inorganic masses of the universe — the birth and 
death of a planet or of some geological era of coexist- 
ent life — occur only at vast intervals of time, and de- 
pend on laws which science has hitherto been unable 
to evolve. The great physical features of our globe 
bear on them a certain stamp of perpetuity. The 
mountains seem to have eternity written on their 
hoary brows. The prophet calls them everlasting. 
Next in order of longevity come certain products of 
the vegetable world. Oaks yet survive in our ancient 
woods, which tradition associates with some incident 
in the history of our Norman or Plantagenet kings. 
Yews still cast their funereal shade on the very spot 
where, ages ago, they probably witnessed the mystic 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



295 



rites of Drnidic superstition.* Seeds that fell from 
the ripened ear on the banks of the Nile — long, it 
may be, ere Moses was deposited, an unconscious babe, 
among its sheltering reeds — if now committed to the 
soil, shoot up and wave their triple heads in our own 
fields — a wondrous instance of indestructible vitality. 
With the introduction of the higher powers of lo- 
comotion, sense, consciousness and intelligence, the 
term of duration is greatly diminished. The average 
of human years, even when the dangers of infancy and 
youth have been escaped, does not perhaps much ex- 
ceed half a century. 

In spite of the belief so widely diffused in the an- 
cient world, that Death was the penalty of some early 
transgression, and that our first parents were destined 
to live for ever — that last change, viewed in relation 
to the present world, is a very merciful appointment. 
The removal of the individual is indispensable to the 
progress of the species. There would be no room for 
the expansion of our children's activity, if we did not 
at length retire and give way to them. Nor is this 
simply rendered necessary by the conditions of space 
and physical existence. We become in time morally 
disqualified for the new functions which the progress 
of events brings along with it. To fill our place and 
perform our part in the great procession of the ages, 
we put on the opinions and habitudes and adopt the 

* 'I think we cannot avoid the conclusion, that many of the spe- 
cimens of the yew which still survive, must have been planted long 
before the first promulgation of Christianity. Kay, some yews still 
standing are probably above 3000 years old.' — c On the Longevity of 
the Yew, Sfc.J by the late J. LJ. Bowman, Esq., F.L.S., communicated 
to Loud-oris Magazine of Natural History, vol. i. K". S. p. 28. 



296 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



insignia of the period to which we belong. Our indi- 
vidual being becomes mcrusted, as it were, with the 
associations and even with the prejudices of our own 
time. Yet without such investment the spiritual na- 
ture would be cut off from all contact and intercourse 
with the men and things immediately around it. It 
thus forms an effectual link between the past and the 
future. By beliefs and sentiments partial and defec- 
tive in themselves, but of great relative value, it is 
fastened and riveted to its appointed place in the 
moral machinery of the world. This machinery itself 
undergoes a constant change. Through a plastic vi- 
tality wrought into it by God, it unwinds and unfolds 
itself from day to day, to meet new exigencies and 
bring a larger range of objects within its operation. 
While our powers continue active, we should strive to 
grow with the times, and transfer our sympathies to 
the new interests that are perpetually arising. But 
this is only possible within certain limits. Early as- 
sociations imprint themselves indelibly on the mind. 
Convictions that were in harmony with the narrower 
circle of men's ideas when we were young — must be 
themselves transformed by the ejection of old ele- 
ments and the admission of new, to be any longer ap- 
plicable to the altered conditions of the great pro- 
blems which still remain for the solution of mankind. 
Old men are incapable of so entire a change. Perhaps 
physical causes may prevent it. With the decline of 
activity and the growing obtuseness of the senses, 
observation and comparison of outward phenomena 
become less easy ; and without a vivid impression of 
new facts, the formation of new opinions is impossible. 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



297 



The tenacity with which earlier acquirements are 
grasped and the large space which they occupy in the 
mind, when they become fixed and petrified under the 
hardening action of length of years — hinder the accu- 
mulation of new elements of thought and the mould- 
ing of older materials into another form. When men 
outlive their interests and affections in this world and 
merely prolong a physical existence into another ge- 
neration, they have a lonely and desolate look, and 
remind us of the solitary leaf of a former summer, 
which may sometimes be seen, sere and wrinkled, 
quivering forlorn and ready to drop at every breath of 
wind, amidst the fresh-budding life of a new spring. 

Death is not only a necessity that must occur after 
a certain term, but a casualty dependent on a thou- 
sand small events that may happen any moment. Its 
possibility and its constant proximity are feelings that 
enter into all our contemplations of Death. Life is 
beset with perils at every turn : and Death differs in 
one respect from every other chance to which we are 
exposed. When the blow is once struck, the effect is 
remediless. Death puts us for ever beyond the reach of 
all the resources of human art. — There are varieties, 
too, in what may be called the natural term of human 
years. Some constitutions are exhausted and come 
to an inevitable dissolution at an earlier age than 
others. So again localities and employments differ 
in their effect on the duration of life. Longevity dis- 
tinguishes particular families and particular races. 
Purer manners and more healthful habits might pos- 
sibly increase the average length of years, and even 
extend it to a century. But though by our follies and 

o 3 



298 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



our vices we rnay accelerate the approach of Death, 
we cannot indefinitely postpone it. Everything in 
man himself and in the world about hinr, proves that 
the perpetuation of our individual existence on earth 
is an impossibility. The last change must come. It 
is grad ually but unerringly announced to us, and .we 
are warned to prepare. The signs of bloom and ma- 
turity pass imperceptibly away. The limbs contract 
and bend. The step loses its elasticity, and the head 
its erectness. The voice becomes feeble and tremu- 
lous : and a few hairs, white and thin, replace the shin- 
ing tresses that hung on the maiden's delicate neck 
and the flowing locks that once waved over the brawny 
shoulders of manhood. Thus, when accident and dis- 
ease are averted, the event does not come upon us as 
a shock, but we calmly anticipate the final disappear- 
ance of the form which has already lost its pristine ful- 
ness and glow of life, in the dissolving shade of Death. 
And these things come with gentle and timely admo- 
nition, to remind us, that our work is done, and that 
the hour will soon strike for our retirement to endless 
rest. 

Limiting our view to the visible phenomena of pre- 
sent scenes, there is a total failure of all ground of 
inference from any cognizable fact — as to the possible 
sequel of Death. All human facts, with the conclu- 
sions deducible from them — except such as are con- 
tained in our perpetual consciousness — belong to the 
past alone. Birth indeed is a mystery, but it is not 
so entirely inexplicable as Death. Of birth we know 
some of the antecedents, and all the more import- 
ant consequents. Of Death we know the antece- 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



299 



dents alone. All that is properly creative — the energy 
present at the generative point of time, when life and 
sense and intellect begin to unfold their mysterious 
germs — this we cannot explain, because it brings us 
into direct contact with the unsearchable power of 
God. But we do know the outward conditions of 
birth and of the subsequent evolution of the powers 
which it puts in action. From our knowledge of the 
nature and combination of these conditions, we can 
in some measure account for much that is peculiar 
and characteristic in the life of the individual. Hu- 
man lineage is spread out before us in the past. We 
can sometimes discover the seeds of genius in the 
temperament of parents and the hereditary bias of a 
race. History in its great facts is a certainty. Its 
principles are known ; its laws can be stated ; its con- 
sequences may be educed. But all this ceases at 
Death. Here absolute ignorance awaits us. f They 
were, and they are not/ is the utmost that the light 
of science enables us to affirm of our departed friends. 
The future is a vast, impenetrable unknown, where 
conjecture, analogy, hope alone enable us to shape 
out a few dim, uncertain forms of possible truth. 

TThat then are the practical results for life and 
opinion, deducible from this aspect of the change of 
Death ? How will the wise man contemplate it ? — He 
will learn to anticipate with tranquillity, an event 
which he sees is inevitable. He will adopt the senti- 
ment of the heathen poet, that c whatever cannot be 
averted, becomes more endurable by patience/*" He 

* 5 levins fit patientia 

Quicquid corrigere est nefas.' — Hor. Carm, i. 24. 



4 



300 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OY FAITH AND DXJTY 0 



will exercise submission and fortitude in tlie face of ap- 
proaching certainty. Prudence will dictate the avoid- 
ance of all unnecessary risks: though this consideration, 
even where all distinct hope of a future after Death is 
wanting, may be, as it often has been, overborne by 
stronger impulses and more generous motives. He will 
study the preservation of his health and his strength, 
of his outward senses and his intellectual faculties — 
under the feeling, that these are blessings which must 
soon pass away. He will endeavour to divest Death of 
all unreal terrors, and encounter that last enemy with 
the calm and cheerful spirit which some irreligious 
philosophers have been able to display, when they were 
already on the brink of the grave. His predominant 
feeling will be — and he will try to reconcile himself 
to it — that nothing is known of the state into which 
he is about to pass — whether his personal conscious- 
ness will survive or perish — and that at the utmost a 
renovation of his individual existence is not impos- 
sible. Beyond this point the philosophy of the world 
— simple naturalism — cannot go. It accepts the ac- 
tual world, as a final, completed fact— only to be in- 
terpreted by laws contained within itself, and an ana- 
logy that never transcends the limits of their visible 
operation. — Does this view of life, with all the aid 
which reason and philosophy can bring to its support 
— suffice for the inward contentment of your spirit? 
Does it yield the pure and perfect peace which you 
feel you want, in the consciousness of nature's decline, 
and when the sorrow of bereavement lies heavy on 
your heart? 

Let us turn, then, to another — the spiritual view 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



301 



of this subject. Let us keep the same phenomena 
before us, but place them in a different light. We 
look now on the actual world, not as an ultimate fact, 
but as itself only the partial expression of a still higher 
fact — a Supreme Intelligence — a Divine Mind. New 
elements are thus brought into the question, and wider 
premises supplied for drawing our conclusions. When 
Mind is assumed as the fundamental reality of all 
things, we are justified in taking as a ground for our 
reasoning, those attributes of rectitude and benevo- 
lence, which are laws necessarily resulting from the 
nature of mind, and without which it could not ope- 
rate or even exist. Such attributes in an Infinite 
Mind, exempt from all possible causes of error or 
disturbance, must be absolutely perfect. — What a 
new aspect Death assumes, when viewed in reference 
to the government of snch a Being — as a part of the 
system which He has constituted for the spiritual 
nurture and discipline of the soul ! We no more 
behold it now in the cold contracted gloom of earth, 
but in the broad and genial light cast upon it from a 
higher sphere. We have secured ground and raised 
ourselves to a point of view, which the mere contem- 
plation of external phenomena could never furnish. 
Setting out from spiritual facts of which our own 
consciousness is the witness, and which are reflected 
back upon it with redoubled strength and clearness 
from the great embodiment of them in the word and 
work and person of Christ — we find a solid basis for 
trust in the infinite wisdom and infinite love of the 
Sovereign Mind. Mind is the only foundation for 
trust. We cannot nut confidence in mere law. We 



302 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

cannot rely on a simple process. Law and process 
awaken sympathy and inspire faith, only as indica- 
tions of the living Spirit from which they emanate. 

Conceive of the universe, then — in accordance with 
the fundamental truth of Christianity — as a vast com- 
munion of minds, embraced and governed by One 
above all, that is absolutely perfect. Fully realize 
to yourself this idea. You will find it pregnant with 
consolation and support, in view of every change that 
can overtake the life of individual man. Infinite wis- 
dom and infinite love ! Are these indeed the prin- 
ciples which guide the destinies of creation ? If you 
once accept the doctrine of a God, the conclusion is 
inevitable. Take it, then, without distrust, and admit 
all the comfort which it bears along with it, into your 
inmost soul. If you are but true to the inward law 
of your being, the Father will bestow on you in death, 
as in life, all the good which is compatible with the 
highest happiness of his whole creation. More, as a 
devoted and affectionate child, you cannot desire. In- 
to His hands you commit yourself in the last great 
crisis of your mortal existence. He has never once 
forsaken you in the changes of life. He will not for- 
sake you now. This is our broadest, surest ground 
of trust — the perfect wisdom and goodness of God. 
It is the ground on which we feel more disposed to 
rely, the longer we live : so as to resolve all our faith 
at last into the single principle of implicit self-sur- 
render to the Father's will. 

When such a faith has penetrated the soul, and be- 
come a vital, actuating principle throughout the cha- 
racter — it quickens the spiritual vision, and gives force 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



303 



and significance to minor considerations which viewed 
by themselves might each separately have little weight, 
but embraced as parts of an organic whole, all inti- 
mately related to the central belief, produce a deep 
and self-consistent impression. Consider in this view 
that law of progress and development which pervades 
the visible universe. Why should this be excluded 
from the region of mind? It will be said, perhaps, 
that the development which we can trace on a retro- 
spect of the past changes of our planet, has resulted 
from the succession of new and distinct orders of be- 
ing, and not from the continuous transition of the 
same order — still less of the separate members of that 
order — into higher forms : and that with regard to 
man, while the species surveyed through long periods 
of time, seem to be steadily on the advance, the indi- 
vidual does his work, and perishes. But it is the pe- 
culiar relation of the individual to the species which 
makes the great and important difference in the case 
of man. In him first we find the species progressive. 
If inferior species have undergone any improvement 
with the march of civilization, it is clue entirely to his 
influence. They only reflect in their physical con- 
dition, the progression of his intelligence. But here 
is the singularity to be noticed. The life of indivi- 
dual men as it exists on earth — even when all ac- 
cident is averted, and external circumstances allow 
its amplest development, and it is extended to its 
longest term — never looks like a complete whole. It 
only contributes its quota to the ever- enlarging idea 
of the species. Collective humanity at any one pe- 
riod of its existence, is no adequate expression of the 



304 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



ultimate tendencies of the race. Whereas, among the 
lower animals, while the species is stationary, the in- 
dividuals embraced in it at a particular time, realize 
completely the specific type. "We have thus in man- 
kind the curious example of a whole constantly tend- 
ing towards perfection, while the several parts of which 
it is made up, are each in itself imperfect, and fall 
below the idea which they collectively suggest. The 
exceptional character of man's condition on earth, 
presents a phenomenon best explicable — to those at 
least who believe in a God — on the supposition, that 
he is here only in the infancy of an immortal exist- 
ence. 

What is the experience of the most virtuous and 
richly endowed mind at the close of the most success- 
ful career ? It is conscious of plans unaccomplished, 
of resources undeveloped, of energies unexhausted, of 
impulses and aspirations which have never reached 
their term, and to which no term seems capable of 
being assigned. Altogether disproportionate to the 
actual conditions of our physical existence are the in- 
herent capacities and the outward and upward strag- 
glings of the captive spirit. The short period allowed 
for the development of the human faculties, compared 
with the richness and variety of the fruits they often 
yield and their constant promise of powers still la- 
tent within — so different from the vast spaces of time 
through which inferior forms of life have preserved 
an unaltered type of being with no indication of pro- 
gress — warrants the inference that men may be suffi- 
ciently ripened during the few short years of their 
terrestrial sojourn, for an ensuing stage of existence, 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



305 



which is invisible because it belongs to a higher sphere 
and is inconceivably wonderful and glorious. There 
is much hidden in all men, which requires a transfer- 
ence into new r scenes for its complete manifestation. 
Those flashes of marvellous light w r hich sometimes 
break forth under strong excitement from the dullest 
minds — the profound foresight and sagacity which 
very ordinary men have been known to display when 
motives of unusual force have been applied to them — 
point to the existence of dormant faculties which, un- 
less God can be supposed to have over-furnished the 
soul for its appointed field of action, seem only to be 
awaiting more favourable circumstances, to awaken 
and disclose themselves. 

The notion of the ancients, that Death was a con- 
sequence and penalty of sin, involves an inversion of 
the proper order of ideas, since it sends us to the 
Past for the solution we should seek in the Future : 
but it has its weight as expressing a profound convic- 
tion of the human mind, that Death viewed as the final 
extinction of conscious activity, is something out of 
harmony with the natural worth and dignity of the 
soul, and therefore marks a passage, either as descent 
or ascent, from one state of existence to another. 
Then — there are our affections. What a light their 
strength and tenderness throw, w T hen purified by deep 
trust in God, on the possibilities of that unknown 
future beyond the grave ! For here immortality of- 
fers the consolation which the best men most strongly 
need. The purer, and kinder and truer the heart, 
the keener the pang of final separation. In all other 
cases, there is some compensation for unavoidable 



306 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

loss. Here — if immortality be a baseless dream- 
there is absolutely none. In all other cases, the 
better a man is, the more he carries a consolation in 
his own breast. Here, the better he is, the deeper 
and more incurable is his wound. Here only, in the 
chill desolation of unbelief, the best would find it the 
most difficult to say from the heart, c Thy will be 
done/ 

The failure of all positive knowledge— all proof 
founded on fact — respecting the Future, is of no im- 
portance in the view which Religion opens before us. 
It could only be so, on the assumption, that the next 
life was a mere prolongation of the present, physically 
as well as spiritually ; since physical phenomena might 
be expected to yield physical evidence. On our pre- 
sent ground, such failure merely indicates, that the 
transition is into a spiritual world, and involves a con- 
tinuance of that invisible life existing wholly within 
the mind, which outward sense cannot apprehend and 
on which outward facts have no necessary bearing. 
Even were the Future conceivable by us here, a fuller 
revelation of it might only overwhelm our faculties 
and interfere with the quiet and humble discharge of 
present duties. Our business is to hope and trust 
and prepare. Faith not science is the discipline of the 
soul for the heavenly world. Hence the testimony 
of the highest consciousness and the purest spiritual 
experience has a value above every other kind of 
evidence on this subject. The solemn declarations of 
those who have lived in habitual intimacy with God, 
and exercised their spiritual vision continually on the 
vital relations between their souls and Him — are here 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



307 



of inestimable moment and far outweigh any deduc- 
tions of science from outward phenomena. For they, 
like Christ, according to their measure of insight, 
' speak that they do know, and testify that they have 
seen/ Theirs is, in a spiritual sense, belief founded 
on experience. 

Hence the authority which on this awful subject, 
attaches to the words of Christ. His was a life wholly 
united with God. The Spirit of the Father filled its 
veins and vibrated in every fibre. The power of im- 
mortality pervaded its inmost depths, and breathed 
forth in every word and act. Christ wins our hearts and 
commands our faith as the spiritual Ideal of our na- 
ture ; and Humanity, as expressed and interpreted by 
him, is evidently but a wayfarer on earth, and belongs 
by its capacities and affections to a state which is yet 
to come. This silent, implicit, unceasing witness to 
a higher life, emanating from the person and work of 
Christ and investing them with the light of another 
world, is to some minds — I confess it is to mine — a 
clearer indication of immortality and carries with it 
a deeper conviction, than the single fact of his resur- 
rection, however powerful the evidence on which it 
rests. The resurrection of Jesus is a fact which stands 
by itself, and offers no points of parallel and compa- 
rison with our own spiritual condition. It brings with 
it no testimonies and no assurances that we can per- 
sonally realize. We know in consequence of it no 
more of the circumstances of the invisible world, than 
we knew before. Its certainty too can never exceed 
the highest attestation possible to an historical event. 
It does not come home to us like a fact of conscious- 



308 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

ness. Its chief value is as an outward and visible ex- 
ponent of the deeper faith that lies enshrined in the 
recesses of every human spirit. According to this 
view, it is not the resurrection which produces a belief 
in immortality, but the belief in immortality which 
renders credible a resurrection. Far different is the 
effect of Christ's living personality on our hearts. 
With perfect confidence, we feel that we could live 
and die with him. The appropriation of his spirit is 
the warrant of our eternal salvation. One instructive 
lesson, however, we may draw from the evangelical 
records of his resurrection ; — not to indulge our ima- 
ginations in vain pictures of the possible scenes of the 
future world. We can know nothing of them ; and 
faith is not strengthened nor virtue aided by gra- 
tuitous creations. Christ died, and rose again, and 
went to heaven. Such is the sum total of the infor- 
mation conveyed to us : and it suffices for our fullest 
trust. We know, that we shall pass through death 
into another and more glorious state of being, and 
that our departed friends have gone thither before us. 
In this simple but sublime assurance let us rest con- 
tent. Let trust in God be our great support; and as 
we descend into the shade which hovers on the verge 
of terrestrial things, let memory melt into hope, and 
the reflected hues of our best arid happiest hours 
on earth mingle in one bright bow of peace over the 
solemn passage which separates time from eternity. 



309 



XX. 

RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 

[Delivered December 29th, 1850.] 

Psalm xlviii. 12, 13. 
" TTalk about Zion, and go round about her : tell the towers 
thereof. 

" Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces ; that ye may 
tell it to the generation following." 

In a few days we shall complete the first half of the 
Nineteenth Century ; and we cannot bid farewell to 
so large a portion of human history without deep 
and earnest thought. The Past that we are leaving, 
connects itself with the Future which is to come ; 
and while the impression lasts, we seem conscious of 
our movement on the mighty stream of ages. Many 
are now living — some may be with us today — whose 
hands will write 1900 ere they die, and who are des- 
tined to live into the century that will terminate the 
second thousand of years from the commencement of 
our Christian civilization. It is a solemn position 
that we now occupy — in the very middle of a century. 
A more fitting occasion could not offer for retrospect 
and anticipation. 

The present century is one of the most remarkable 
in the annals of mankind, and will doubtless be classed 



310 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



by future historians with those eras which have exer- 
cised the most powerful influence on the condition 
and destinies of our race : — the diffusion of arts and 
literature and a common medium of intellectual in- 
tercourse by Greek and Roman arms ; — the promul- 
gation of Christianity ; — the immigration of Teutonic 
and Slavonic races into western Europe ; — the Refor- 
mation with its attendant agencies — if indeed that 
event be not rather the proper commencement of our 
actual state, and all that has happened subsequent 
to it, one great progressive change in which we are 
still involved, and whose final issue it baffles human 
sagacity to conjecture. One broad general feature 
characterizes the civilization of this last period, and 
distinguishes it from every preceding one — the grow- 
ing importance of the popular element in Society, 
and the assumption by the associated energies of vast 
masses of men, of that directing influence in human 
affairs, which was once exclusively exercised by a few 
commanding intellects. This tendency is daily be- 
coming more conspicuous. It is one of the signs of 
the age ; and its deep significance all who reflect on 
it, must perceive, — Let us now take a rapid survey of 
the principal events that have contributed to social 
amelioration and indicate mental progress, during 
the fifty years which are on the point of their com- 
pletion. 

The nineteenth century opened amidst the storms 
of a revolutionary war which exposed this country 
to the combined hostility of Europe, organized and 
wielded by the extraordinary man who had bound the 
writhings of a frenzied liberty by his despotic spell, and 



RETROSPECT AXD ANTICIPATION. 



311 



whose name many of us are old enongli to remember 
as a word of terror at our domestic hearths. Ambi- 
tion grew drank with success, and precipitated its own 
downfall. A general pacification of Europe was the 
immediate result ■ and thousands believed, they had 
reached the happy close of an age of convulsion, which 
would be signalized by the restoration of order and 
law, and the establishment throughout Europe of con- 
stitutional government and a wise freedom. This is 
not the place to remark, how wofully such expectations 
have been disappointed, and how want of faith on the 
part of sovereigns to their subjects, has dispersed the 
elements of future storms. Our attention is rather 
called to the more fortunate direction of events in 
our own island. During the period of comparative 
tranquillity which followed the termination of the 
war, the arts of peace revived — intercourse between 
England and the Continent was resumed — men of dif- 
ferent countries freely exchanged their ideas — edu- 
cation was extended — science and learning were pro- 
secuted with vigour, and industry in all its branches 
experienced an immense development. And now set 
in among ourselves that course of wise and timely 
reformation, which so often in our history — some 
would say, by a happy accident — some, through the 
conservative instinct and quiet energy of our national 
character — some, and more correctly, by the good 
providence of God — has interposed to ward off the 
convulsive change and violent disorganization which 
remedy deferred and accumulated abuse must have 
inevitably brought on. 

We owe much to the mixture of elements in our 



312 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OP FAITH AND DUTY. 



legislature. If the preponderance of the aristocratic 
sometimes obstructs and delays measures beyond the 
point which the ardent and sanguine have fixed as 
the utmost limit of their patient endurance, it secures 
to every change projected the completest investigation 
before it is introduced, and gives strength and solidity 
to the final result. Between the extreme sections of 
political opinion — represented-, on one hand; by those 
who uphold everything as it exists in Church and 
State and only yield at last to irresistible necessity, 
and on the other, by those who are imbued with the 
spirit of innovation and would immediately re-con- 
struct the social fabric to meet their theoretic ideas 
— there has ever existed a large and powerful middle 
party, adorned by our noblest historical names and 
associated with the remembrance of all our great con- 
stitutional struggles, ^'which owns the claims at once 
of progress and of conservatism — which loves and ho- 
nours the Past; yet not as a dead finality, but the 
living womb of new developments and a richer Future. 
To the exertions of this party we are indebted for 
most of those measures during the last half-century, 
on which the friends of humanity now look back with 
the greatest satisfaction. Upright and patriotic men 
have ever been found in all the divisions of party, 
whose virtues and services must not be forgotten : but 
it is characteristic of England and ominous of its calm 
and steady progress in future years, that the changes 
through which we have passed, have not hitherto been 
effected by men of extreme opinions on either side, 
but directly or indirectly through the moral force of 
the great intermediate party which seems best to em- 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



313 



body and express the indwelling genius of our con- 
stitution. 

At the commencement of this century, Slavery 
was a legal institution and the slave-trade a recog- 
nized traffic in the British dominions ; industry was 
fettered by restrictions and perverted by monopolies ; 
Protestant Dissenters and Catholics were treated as 
aliens to the constitution, shut out from its privileges 
and distinctions, and only sheltered from persecution 
by a meagre toleration ; our Legislature expressed 
almost exclusively the feelings and interests of the 
aristocratic class, who commanded its votes, and filled 
or disposed of numbers of its seats as their private 
property ; while the vast amount of talent and energy 
and public spirit nursed in the bosom of trade and 
commerce, found in it no fitting and adequate repre- 
sentation. These were galling evils against which the 
popular mind, as it grew in conscious power and in- 
telligence, chafed and fretted, and might have broken 
out in destructive rebellion, had not the due remedy 
come in time, and one after another of the possible 
occasions of revolution been taken away. And the 
change was not brought to pass by violence. The mo- 
derate party mediating between extreme tendencies, 
by the energetic exercise of constitutional powers, 
without shedding one drop of human blood, peacefully 
accomplished the needful transition. By that party, 
the Slave-trade and Slavery itself were abolished ; the 
Protestant Dissenters were invested with their full poli- 
tical rights— the Established Church simply retaining 
under the control of the State, its ancient revenues 
and dignities and its parliamentary representation 



314 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

the Legislature was reformed and purified, and a large 
popular element infused into its composition. The 
disabilities of the Catholics were not indeed removed, 
nor was commerce liberated from its heaviest fetters, 
by the immediate act of the same party ; yet such a 
policy became practicable, in consequence of prepara- 
tions which they had made, through the influence 
of principles which they had diffused, or by instru- 
mentalities which their reforms had called into exist- 
ence : and it was their cordial support which carried 
those measures into effect, when introduced by their 
political opponents. Such on the whole is the grati- 
fying retrospect of the last half- century. It bears 
witness to repeated efforts in the direction of civil, 
religious and industrial freedom, and to the growing 
power and extension of just and humane principles. 
The whole period too has been marked by a rapid 
dissemination of knowledge and intelligence among 
the mass of the people — by some abatement of poli- 
tical and sectarian antipathies — -by the constant in- 
crease of schools and the adoption of more enlightened 
methods of instruction — by exertions to improve the 
social and sanitary condition of the lower classes — 
and by the rise of a new and most influential form 
of literature — without precedent in former times — - 
popular in its origin, its aim and its effects. 

Has the result corresponded to the effort ? Look- 
ing forward into the next half-century, do we foresee, 
that the more unfettered powers and ampler resources 
of good, delivered to us from the Past, will be counter- 
balanced by new dangers and heavier responsibilities, 
and by some agencies of evil that were unknown in 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



315 



ruder and less enlightened times ? Good and evil are 
inextricably intermingled in this life ; and it is the 
condition of any great and rapid development of the 
means and instruments of good, to engender along 
with them some fresh and more active seeds of evil. 
A considerable interval must usually elapse before 
new principles yield their natural fruit. Ages passed 
ere Christianity met with a congenial element and 
suitable materials, and could display its genuine and 
proper energy. During the first centuries of its ex- 
istence, it operated with a destructive force on the old 
civilization, and some noble intellects strenuously re- 
sisted it as a principle of disorganization and decay. 
It must not, therefore, be concluded, that progress 
has reached its limits, or come to a stand, because the 
effect of some changes which it cost our predecessors 
immense efforts and sacrifices to produce, has not 
hitherto fulfilled expectation, but left many evils to 
be encountered among their immediate results. We 
should rather find in these things an incentive to 
deeper thoughtfulness and a wiser energy. 

In many of the circumstances which at a first glance 
we should naturally single out as peculiarly indicative 
of the superior civilization of the nineteenth century, 
we discern on a closer inspection some qualifying dis- 
advantage, some counterbalancing evil, which — now 
that the achievement is over and we are waiting for 
the result — forces itself daily in broader and distincter 
characters on our view, as a part of the coming trial 
and discipline of the next fifty years. — We speak, for 
example, with pride and enthusiasm, of the wonderful 
progress of modern science : and if the observation 



316 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

be limited to those departments which embrace tlie 
laws and properties of matter, and admit the exact 
measurement and calculation of the mathematics, no 
language can mark in too decided terms our un- 
questionable superiority. Here the successes and dis- 
coveries of the moderns are truly marvellous. Nature 
relinquishes the contest with nian, and seems on the 
point of yielding up her most hidden secrets and 
submitting her subtlest agencies to his control. But 
in inquiries which have man himself for their object 
— the laws of his mental organization, the modes of 
his culture and government, and the whole range of 
his social relations — it cannot be affirmed, that our 
advance has been at all proportionate, or that there is 
by any means that difference between ourselves and 
the ancients, which the distance of time separating us, 
would have rendered probable. If we turn to what 
is called the higher philosophy, we find ourselves in 
few directions much advanced beyond the point which 
men had reached ages ago. The great intellects of 
the Past still maintain their ascendancy, and share 
the empire of modern opinion between them. In 
theology, notwithstanding that we live in the light of 
Christianity, we are still tied up in narrow systems, 
spell-bound by words and phrases, prejudiced, bi- 
goted, and averse from thorough and fundamental 
search after truth. Among the educated classes of 
this country, I fear it must be added, that there is 
now less manly freedom of mind, less openness to con- 
viction, and a more slavish dread of public opinion, 
than at the same period in the last century. In almost 
every path of metaphysical speculation, in nearly all 



RETROSPECT AXD ANTICIPATION. 



317 



the higher questions of ethical science, even in the 
latest theories of social organization, we have been an- 
ticipated "by the ancient schools."* On subjects of the 
utmost importance to human well-being and happi- 
ness, we are yet without clear first principles and in 
the very rudiments of knowledge. Perhaps political 
economy is the only branch of moral investigation 
that approaches in its definitions and conclusions to 
scientific exactness, and indicates a transition from 
the vagueness of ancient methods to the precision re - 
quired by modern intellect. The strongest tenden- 
cies of the age are unfavourable to habits of abs- 
tract thought and pure reasoning. The unparal- 
leled success which has crowned our researches into 
the physical world, with immediate opportunity for 
endless practical application, captivates the popular 
judgment with obvious evidence of positive useful- 
ness, and draws away attention from those dimmer 
realms of mind where problems of unspeakable mo- 
ment are still awaiting their solution. Our science, 
therefore, wonderful and glorious as it is, has yet its 
dark side. It overshadows, and almost blinds us to, 
wide fields of human thought, where great minds 
once gathered, as great minds, we trust, will hereafter 
gather, the rarest fruits of spiritual wisdom. 

In the popular communication and vast diffusion 
of knowledge, we have another prominent feature of 

* Hexnsterhuis, profoundly versed in the philosophy of antiquity, 
thought the moderns had struck out nothing new. " In Metaphysica 
quae vera certaque sint, et in quibus fircne consistere possis, apud ye- 
teres se reperisse omnia dicebat — ubique cum adrm'ratione qua dam 
deprehendens permulta, quae aetatis nostras yanitas audet ut recens 
inyenta jactare." — D. Uuhnkenii Elog. Til. HemsterJms. p. 14. 

P 2 



318 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

our time — ominous of good, but not without its 
qualification. What is gained in breadth, is some- 
times lost in depth. Too many objects are crowded 
at once upon the mind. Rest and leisure are not left 
for concentrated thought. Practical results are too 
promptly demanded. Inquiry is not prolonged with 
sufficient patience and continuity; and the conclu- 
sion is more prized for its susceptibility of immediate 
application, than for its warrant of enduring value. 
Authors dare not reckon on close and sustained at- 
tention in the generality of their readers. The public 
insist on entertainment, and will be instructed with- 
out trouble. Knowledge is brought up to them, and 
made easy of comprehension. They have no difficulty 
in finding where it lies, and can appropriate without 
any great effort of thought, so much of it as they 
need for the ordinary intercourse of society. There 
is much that is excellent in all this ; but, unless coun- 
teracted by some other influence, its tendency is to 
produce a general level of intellect. Old persons have 
remarked a decline of originality of character since 
their younger days. There are fewer than formerly 
without some opinion derived from newspapers and 
reviews and popular summaries of information — with- 
out something to say on the many topics that are now 
discussed among men ; but perhaps there are fewer 
still who have laboriously collected knowledge for 
themselves, and wrought out of native materials a 
judgment truly their own. There are amongst us 
now fewer meditative and comprehensive intellects.' 
Fewer works are produced of high aim and wide 
range, combining severe thought with deep research. 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



319 



A few splendid exceptions it would be easy to specify 
in a Grote, a Macaulay and a Mill ; but I speak of 
general tendency. Our very poetry and fiction are 
reduced in form and lighter in character, floating in a 
serial stream through the pages of a magazine^ and 
adapted to the wants and tastes of the numerous and 
increasing class who can only snatch a few moments 
in the hurried intervals of business, for their mental 
culture and gratification. The counteraction which 
the age itself might supply, should be found in its 
application of increased stimulus to the talent, genius 
and intellectual vigour of the humbler classes, and its 
infusion of a new life from this source into the edu- 
cated mind of the country. But there is danger of this 
wild growth being absorbed in the wide-spread super- 
ficiality and exhausted by premature and unmeasured 
production. Spirits of generous quality, especially 
among the poor, our grammar-schools and universities 
were originally intended to receive into their bosom, 
and train up in exact discipline and severe scholarship 
for the higher functions of society. Unhappily they 
impose conditions which the noblest will not accept. 
May we live to witness a reform, that will turn them 
once more into their destined channel and make them 
national again ! 

Immense good has resulted to society from the 
increasing preponderance of the industrial over the 
feudal spirit. It is one of those general tendencies in 
which every friend of humanity must rejoice. Habits 
of order and thrift and forethought and the love of 
peace are among its most obvious advantages. Its 
working is announced to the very eye in the growth 



320 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

of towns and facilities of inter- communication, in the 
decay of the moated manor-liouse and the baronial 
castle, and the gradual disappearance of our ancient 
forests. But with this change, so beneficial on the 
whole, a cautious and calculating spirit grows up, 
which takes material interests too prominently into 
account — which in its exclusive regard for the prac- 
tical, recoils perhaps too far from the proud romance 
of ancient honour and high-mindedness — and, when 
questions of simple justice and humanity present 
themselves, is too much disposed to ask in the first 
place, what will be the probable effect of any move- 
ment in their favour, on the worth of investments, 
the return to capital, or the activity of trade. I do 
not say, that such inquiries are improper, or that a 
far-sighted benevolence is not often involved in them ; 
but they indicate a spirit which may easily become 
too strong, and should be watched with jealousy. 

Kindred tendencies are fostered by the love of ease 
and luxury and the extreme sensitiveness to advan- 
tages of social position, which the diffused wealth at- 
tendant on a high civilization never fails to produce. 
The soft and polished citizen of the nineteenth century 
shrinks from the thought of toils and sacrifices which 
his hardier and less enlightened ancestors would have 
incurred without hesitation for some cherished belief 
or fancied question of right. He will not forsake his 
own warm hearth and well-spread board, to assert 
some abstract principle which has no bearing, that he 
can discern, on the material interests of the actual 
world. Nor does the fashionable religion of the day 
oppose any effectual check to these enervating influ- 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



321 



ences. It lias purged off the roughness and sternness 
of past times, and become effeminate and sentimental . 
It deals in feeling and plays with, the imagination, but 
dares not appeal to reason and. will not throw itself 
courageously on first principles. Its teachers are no 
longer disciplined in the exercises of earnest thought 
and fearless inquiry . Vigour and originality of mind 
have ceased to characterize our English theology. It 
subsists on the accumulated fruits of more laborious 
generations. It has forsaken the study for the plat- 
form ; and pulpits that once resounded to the homely 
and vehement but masculine eloquence of Latimer 
or Knox, now overflow with a mawkish tenderness of 
sensibility. God is made less merciful than man. 
Terror and vengeance are cast into the future world, 
Unbounded compassion and a softness that shrinks 
from any infliction of pain, become the ruling law of 
this. The mind cannot endure the presence of suf- 
fering, and hastens to relieve it without investigating 
its causes. The retributions of Providence are inter- 
cepted in their effect. More interest is felt, and more 
active benevolence is exerted, for the convict in his 
cell, than for many a good and quiet man who keeps 
within the limits of social duty and has never violated 
the laws of his country. The profligate and selfish 
who throw their children on the community, have a 
larger share in our sympathies and are better provided 
for by our legislation, than the poor and honest father 
of a family who asks help from no one, and by hard 
industry just keeps himself in decent independence. 
Christian brotherhood — that holiest of words — is de- 
graded into a cant. All our sensibilities are to be 



322 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF EAITH AND DUTY. 

expended on the diseased and corrupt members of the 
human family. Pain and misery must not be permit- 
ted to exist, Man's life must be preserved at what- 
ever cost. Every other interest of humanity must be 
sacrificed to inviolable peace. No war upon freedom, 
no tyranny over conscience, no trampling on the most 
sacred rights — can authorize an armed resistance and 
weigh against the guilt of any possible effusion of 
blood. Such are doctrines widely promulgated at the 
present day. We may congratulate ourselves on the 
increase of our humanity; but let us take care, that 
we do not drivel and dote in expressing it. 

We may notice, I think, as a general result of the 
tendencies now described, a certain decline of heroic 
spirit in the national mind. Enthusiasm evaporates 
in the prevalent disposition to look only at what is 
called the practical side of a question, and in a fancied 
superiority to what are deemed the visionary crotchets 
of by-gone days. Men will risk nothing that they 
can help. They will no longer contend for words, for- 
getting that the greatest truths have often no visible 
exponent but words. They have allayed their passions 
and dismissed their prejudices : it may be questioned, 
whether they have always put principles in their place, 
and whether sometimes they do not mistake selfish- 
ness for wisdom. With the habits of mind that now 
so extensively pervade the community — if the grand 
struggle of the seventeenth century were to come 
over again, we may doubt, whether an equal number 
of men could be found in any class to make the same 
efforts and sacrifices for their convictions — whether 
our country-gentlemen could furnish an Elliot, a 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



323 



Hampden, or a Pyni — whether our present race of 
farmers coiild send forth a yeomanry like the Iron- 
sides of Cromwell — whether Leeds and Manchester 
now would make the same determined stand for a 
spiritual principle, as Hull and Bristol then. It was 
well for our liberties, that the rough and bloody con- 
flict necessary for achieving them, came on in the 
natural order of events, before civilization had made 
our people too polished and too speculative to fight 
for them : and it is unfortunate for other countries, 
as yet in the throes of constitutional development, 
that the culture of art and science has with them an- 
ticipated the birth of freedom. 

Secure in our insular position and satisfied with our 
inheritance of freedom, we listen perhaps too readily 
to the counsels of the selfish policy, which bids us at- 
tend to our own interests and take no part in the effort 
to promote good government and aid social progress 
abroad. But is it possible for any one member of 
the great European family, so completely to separate 
itself from all the rest ? If freedom perishes on the 
continent, what will become of it among ourselves ? 
"What will become of our trade and our commerce — 
even admitting these to be the only interests with 
which our foreign policy has any concern — should an 
absolute despotism establish its crushing rule over the 
whole of Europe ? I am aware of the extreme delicacy 
of this question — and the difficulty of deciding, how 
far the sympathies of political relationship should ex- 
tend, and where they should stop, Doubtless, we are 
right in checking the meddlesome and pugnacious pro- 
pensities which have so often heretofore involved us 



324 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

in unavailing and ruinous warfare : but there is a point 
where indifference ceases to be sound and even pacific 
policy, and becomes ungenerous and inhuman. We 
must take care, that the economical doctrine of non- 
interference does not extinguish in us all sympathy 
for the oppressed, and all enthusiasm for the principle 
of truth and right. 

Every Christian believes, that universal peace, ce- 
mented by the spirit of brotherhood, is the ultimate 
destiny of the human race, and the issue to which all 
true civilization tends. But hard conditions are at- 
tached by Providence to our choicest blessings. We 
must not prematurely maim the indispensable process, 
in vainly forestalling the result. We must not mis- 
take the distant visions of a prophetic spirit, for the 
stern necessities of our actual world. The instinct 
of self-defence is implanted in us by God. We must 
distinguish between the arm that assails, and the arm 
that defends, human rights. The hosts that would 
lay waste our civilization, are not to be confounded 
with those that are embattled to preserve and per- 
petuate it. It is false humanity, from the dread of 
momentary suffering, to prefer the slow consuming 
malady which cherishes the seeds of future strife, to 
the brief agony of conflict which may be the neces- 
sary preliminary of a safe and lasting peace. There 
are few incidents in our history, on which a generous 
mind reflects with more satisfaction, than Cromwell's 
noble interposition to shield the poor Protestants of 
the Alps from the persecutions of the House of Savoy. 
If the great prince who headed our Revolution, has 
been censured for involving England too deeply in 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 325 

continental wars, can it be doubted, on a broader 
view, that the preservation of civil and religions 
liberty in Europe, depended on the resistance which 
he helped to make effectual, against the bigoted and 
despotic domination of France ? In our own days, 
before our very eyes, we have seen two brave and 
noble-minded nations — -one struggling for its ancient 
franchises, a natural bulwark against barbarism in 
eastern Europe — -the other, in the heart of Germany, 
a perfect model of calm and constitutional opposition 
to wrong — -overpowered by force and trampled out of 
their political existence, without one arm stretched 
forth to help them, and only a voice here and there 
to compassionate and bewail their, fall. Such a spec- 
tacle fills the heart with a profound sadness and almost 
shakes one's faith in the ultimate destinies of hu- 
manity. Gloomy indeed in the eye of every lover of 
his kind are the present aspects of Europe. Dark and 
evil powers are in the ascendant, preparing to cast 
their baleful shade over the ancient abodes of science 
and religious freedom. Tyranny and priesthood seem 
to be recovering their ancient sway. The chances of 
the future waver between anarchy and despotism. 
Enthusiasm for what is great and noble sickens and 
dies in the chill of perpetual disappointment. Efforts 
constantly abortive have plucked hope and courage 
from the popular heart. Want of faith in God and 
in truth is at the bottom of that moral weakness and 
exhaustion which has laid so much knowledge and in- 
telligence prostrate at the feet of their oppressors. 

For ourselves, there is happily much to preserve us 
from a similar catastrophe, in the freedom and activity 

Q 



3,26 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OP FAITH AND DUTY. 

of our religious life; and if we can only keep up 
amongst us in all its strength the old Puritan spirit 
of independence and honesty, it will bear us safely 
through all our difficulties and straits. But in this 
quarter also, we are not without danger, and we must 
submit to have plain and unpalatable truths spoken to 
us. We congratulate ourselves as Protestant Dis- 
senters, on our improved social position, and the 
more liberal and friendly tone that pervades the inter- 
course of different sects. But the change, desirable 
as it is, has not been one of pure gain to the cause of 
Christian truth and liberty. Less persecuted from 
without, we are more open to insidious and corrupting 
influences from within. As we have become more 
easy, we have become more indifferent. As we have 
less to struggle for, we seem to have less to preserve. 
Our peculiar principles are less precious to us, in 
the same degree that they are less openly attacked. 
Meanwhile foreign attractions act with increasing 
force on our loose and scattered ranks. Conviction 
gives way to the influence of fashion. Precedent, 
authority, appeals to the imagination and the feel- 
ings, worldly considerations — are continually absorb- 
ing numbers into the great vortex of the national 
Establishment, without the removal or diminution of 
one objection which has long excluded the most con- 
scientious minds from its communion, or the failure 
of one main argument that has justified for nearly 
two hundred years the independent existence of Pro- 
testant Dissent. Our liberality softens into laxity, 
and so takes without resistance the impression of the 
world's opinion and law. In their sensitiveness to 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



327 



public censure, men hesitate to think and act for 
themselves on a subject of all others the most impor- 
tant, and where opinion, to be of any value, must be a 
personal conviction. In their excess of refinement, 
they shrink from the alleged vulgarity of Dissent, 
wholly unconscious of the far deeper vulgarity — a 
vulgarity which taints the inmost soul — of putting 
rank and fashion and the mere accidents of social 
position, in competition with the eternal claims of 
truth and uprightness. 

Among the facts of our time, of vast import in its 
bearing on the Future, is that great fact of our Na- 
tional Church — so interwoven with our whole his- 
torv and constitution, and furnished with so vast an 
apparatus of instrumentalities for evil or for good. 
How must we deal with it ? Must it remain as it 
is ? Must it be destroyed ? Must it be reformed ? 
The two first alternatives would prove — at least in 
their immediate consequences — perhaps equally ca- 
lamitous to the cause of truth and the healthful 
growth of the popular mind. The third might not, 
in any form that it could now possibly take, meet all 
the objections of conscientious minds, or succeed in 
dissolving within the bosom of one comprehensive 
communion, the invidious distinction of Church and 
Dissent. But such a step (if still possible) would be 
the first and the safest towards a more perfect consti- 
tution of religious society, and most in harmony with 
that principle of historical development which per- 
vades the working of all our institutions. To eliect 
such a change, earnestness and consistency are re- 
quired in all religious professors. Religion must be- 



328 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 

come a conviction, and cease to be a question of 
fashion. Those within the Church who are dissatisfied 
with her discipline and disbelieve her formularies, 
must courageously come out of her and take the con- 
sequences, till she is reformed and purified. Those 
who are not of the Church, but have been nursed in 
sounder doctrine and a freer spirit, must not pusilla- 
nimously steal into her, while their convictions and 
her creeds continue unchanged, because some worldly 
disadvantage may still attach to honest profession, 
and vulgar minds cannot understand the true noble- 
ness of a manly and courageous assertion of prin- 
ciple. If all in time past who knew the right, had 
only done the right, an overpowering force of public 
opinion would long ago have compelled reform; the 
Church would have been spared her corruptions ; 
and Dissent, instead of being stigmatized, would have 
been honoured for its martyrdom. 

What we most need to avert the dangers and meet 
the wants of the present condition of society, and 
perpetuate a steady, healthful progress through the 
remainder of the century — is the revival of a noble 
and disinterested zeal for all things right and true 
and beautiful — for justice and liberty and social 
renovation all over the earth — for depth, solidity and 
thoroughness of knowledge — for high excellence in 
moral character and mental accomplishment — for 
simple-minded truthfulness and courageous honesty 
of religious profession. If liberty is to survive its 
dangers — if truth is to vanquish its obstacles — if pure 
and hearty religion is again to fill men's souls with 
spiritual life- — it is to you, whose minds and charae- 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



329 



ters now ripening towards maturity, must furnish the 
moral elements of the next fifty years, that the world 
will look for the progressive achievement of those 
blessings, which it has long conceived and desired, 
but as yet has been unable to realize. Go forth, then, 
to this great work with every auspicious omen from 
the half-century which you are now leaving beliind 
you — faithful to your convictions, and filled with the 
generous enthusiasm which is the parent of every 
exalted aim and virtuous endeavour — through the 
changes of time, and the revolutions of opinion, and 
the new interests that are ever infusing themselves 
into human affairs, keeping your eye steadily fixed 
on great principles and putting your trust in the un- 
changeable purposes of the Eternal God, 



THE EXD t 



printed by 
john edwaeb taylor, little que 
Lincoln's inn fields. 



H 12 



0 021 



